What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

Nursing is a profession that often involves long lonely night shifts in eerie hospital wards. It's a perfect breeding ground for ghost stories. These stories often involve sightings of apparitions, strange noises, and unexplained events that are said to have taken place in hospitals, hospices, and other healthcare settings. Some of these stories are believed to be based on true events, while others are purely fictional. Regardless, they continue to captivate and intrigue both nurses and non-nurses alike - providing a spooky glimpse into the world of healthcare after dark.

I know you have seen and heard freaky things. Share your nursing ghost stories...

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

I have a story...it's not a nursing ghost story, because I'm just a student and haven't seen anything scary yet...and I don't know that it's as much of a ghost story as it is a supernatural story, but I want to tell it.

Yesterday I was going to get white shoes for clinicals. My mom came with me. As we were driving past this one kind of scary section of town, we stopped at a traffic light, and my mom said, "Did I ever tell you about the guy we saw here the night pap-pap (her dad) died?" I said no, and she got kind of teary eyed and started to tell me the story.

My grandpa (pap-pap) died five years ago. He had pneumonia and then he went into a coma and died. The hospital called my mom and all her brothers at in the early morning when he went into the coma, and told them to come to the hospital to say their goodbyes. My mom and dad were in the car, driving through this bad part of town at three in the morning on their way to the hospital, and they stopped at the traffic light. A sketchy looking beat-up car pulled up next to them, and the guy in it rolled his window down. My mom said she was whispering to my dad, "No, don't open the window, just drive away, don't do it" because she thought the guy was going to shoot them or carjack them or something. My dad, however, isn't really a timid guy (he's big and he used to be a steelworker and when kids used to get into "my dad is tougher than your dad" arguments, I was always secretly sure that my dad was the toughest) so he rolled down the window.

The guy was younger, and scruffy looking, but my mom couldn't tell me what he really looked like, you know, eyes, skin, hair. She said she couldn't remember. He asked my dad where the closest Walmart was. My dad gave him directions, and the man said thank you. Then he said, "I sense that you are heavy-hearted in this car tonight." (Which, really??? What kind of thing is that for a scruffy guy looking for a Walmart at 3AM to say?? This is when my mom and I both started crying as she was telling the story) My dad said "Yeah, her dad is in the hospital and we're on our way to see him." The man said, "I just wanted to tell you that he's going to be in a better place, and everything's going to be ok." and he drove away. My mom said as soon as he said that, she felt this overwhelming sense of peace, and my dad did too, and they looked at each other and were like "what just happened here?"

That's all. I don't know if that guy was an angel, if there are angels, or just a person who happened to be in the right place at the right time and knew exactly what to say, but either way, I think that it's a cool story.

I believe he was an angel.

[amarilla, RN]

Can I just say that I LOVE this thread? :yeah:

Two experiences from the hospital:

I had a room with two post-op patients; bed 1 was awaiting discharge on POD 3 and bed 2 was completing a series of abx. Bed 1 goes home and that leaves bed 2, a content 40-something gentleman reading quietly in the room. Later on that shift, I took an admission to bed 1; an elderly gent with CHF, looking worse for wear. Trying to get him settled, I felt badly that I couldn't seem to ease his discomfort, though he thanked me profusely for trying. Fast forward to nighty night, and I give report and go home.

I come back the next day to find bed 1 empty and bed 2 greeting me with a cheerful hello. I ask co-workers what happened to bed 1 and they point him out, in a room in front of the station. Uh oh. Although he wasn't my patient, I stopped in to see how he was doing and was surprised to find him still, peaceful...and looking much more pink and improved from the night before. Hmm. I cursed my (new) nursing judgement for thinking this man so much worse off and after exchanging pleasantries, went back to my own patients.

Bed 2 calls, (unusual), and I go in to check on him. He asks how bed 1 is doing and where he was transferred to. Before I can think of a polite way to answer questions about the status of the other patient, Bed 2's voice gets really low and says, "You know, don't think I'm crazy or anything, but I was sure that guy was going to die."

(keeping face emotionless) I ask, "oh, what made you feel that way?". Bed 2 tells me that he is a priest, and had a feeling that he was placed with this gentleman to "help him cross".

Sure enough, patient from Bed 1 begins to take off his clothes, pointing at people we couldn't see, and telling us that he was going home. He did go home that night, and I was with his nurse to hold his hand as he passed.

--

Another, from when I was a tech:

Elderly lady patient, in for surgery. Several days on the ward. After surgery, developed an infection and moved to isolation for treatment. Not surprisingly, she deteriorated and became confused as the days mounted. I was in her room, helping her through AM care, when she asked me 'if (I) scared easy'. I laughed - telling her no one from Texas scares easy - and ask her how I can help. She tells me that there is an animal - a furry one, maybe a dog, she says - hiding under the bed. "It keeps biting me", she says, "and it doesn't have eyes, a real mean-looking critter."

(pause to think of good answer) I made a big production of looking for the dog and reassuring her that there wasn't a dog and she needn't be afraid. She told me that I was a dear but I was very mistaken, and she was glad that I couldn't see it.

Sure enough, she began screaming later that night and was flailing against the dog, telling us not to let them get her. She passed away, but kept that awful expression - fright, really - on her face.

--

Personally, I've had some strange things happen when I had moved into my last apartment. Scratching in the walls, voices when no one else was home, doors closing on their own, feeling like you're being watched. Landlord wasn't surprised when I moved out at exactly 1 year, 1 day.

More stories, please! Anyone?

[Flying ICU RN]

My first 8 years were spent on the night shift. One night a fully monitored patient (not my patient) expired and was pronounced, he had been DNR, so no cardiac meds. The nurse was notoriously slow in his work and left everything connected, and the monitor on while doing the paperwork (pre alarm restriction days).

A full 20 minutes later the monitor reads from asystole to P.E.A > 100 for a full five minutes before flat lining again.

That was an interesting moment!

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

I have to add my personal experience to this list of great stories. In 1996, my Dad was in North Shore Hospital on Long Island awaiting transfer to Hospice in Glen Cove. He had lung cancer that metastasized to the brain and had developed numerous tumors that were inoperable. After having signed the DNR, we knew it was just a matter of time. He was still conscious and had no idea that the end was so near but was beginning to experience hallucinations. I was sitting at the end of his hallway in front of a window just a few doors from his room, and I saw a figure walk into his room. So I jumped up to see who it was, and ran into the room. I startled my Dad and asked him where the doctor went, and he looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

That same night, my sister came running to me because she had seen a dark figure in the hallway by his room that disappeared also. Needless to say, we were very creeped out. Dad passed a couple of days later.

On a professional note, I have experienced this a few times and I saw it also when my father-in-law passed. I have had patients who were unconscious and unresponsive (my father-in-law included) who seem to come out of it and stare as if they're seeing and recognizing something at the foot of their bed. I always like to think that they're recognizing someone who's come to take them to the other side.

Has anyone else seen this?

My Mum used to wake up quite often and see a dark figure at the side of the bed. It completely disappeared after a while, but she used to see it for quite a number of years. She asked my Dad once if he could see it, and he said nothing was ever there. As far as I know no-one died when she saw it, but she was very depressed at the time. Maybe this dark figure hones in on dying or depressed people?

Sorry re your Dad, he will be in a better place now I reckon.

[GHGoonette, BSN, RN]

I see a lot of the stories posted are not nursing-related, so I'll add my own.

i once had a beautiful German Shepherd dog called Cassie. She became very ill and died in 1990. In her lifetime, she was an "escape artist", and her favorite trick was popping the latches of the lower windows and climbing out.

For years afterwards, sometimes at night I would hear the sound of the window in the next bedroom opening and banging closed again. I would check up on the kids, asking whether either of them had opened it, to be told no, they weren't even in the room. Needless to say, the window would still be closed and latched....

I haven't heard this for a long time now, but I like to think that if it was Cassie's spirit letting me know she was still hanging around, and if she has moved on now, that when I move on myself, I will find her waiting for me.

[iNurseUK, RN]

Now I cannot verify the truth of this story but a very senior staff nurse told me recently.

Our Oncology ward had students on as we almost always do. This was the Early shift and a patient had died in the night. The night staff had done Last Offices and the body had been taken to the morgue but the night staff had not had chance to clear the room yet.

Well Sister assigned the student nurse to clear up the deceased patient's belongings, clean and remake the bed and so on and the student was happy to do this.

About 15 minutes into the task the student nurse came flying out of the side room white as a sheet and ended up in Sister;s office. There she told Sister that she had been clearing items from the bathroom vanity unit, had glanced up and had seen the recently-deceased patient looking over her shoulder in the mirror above the unit.

The student nurse was so badly shaken by this she was sent home for the day.

Imagination? Who knows?

[Newbiestudent]

OMG!

that just scared the crap out of me!

waaa.....

this stories is giving me goosebumps..

but i like reading it..lol

[Newbiestudent]

delete post

[Newbiestudent]

when working at a maximum security forensic hospital for the criminally insane, i had the scare of my life! another nurse and myself entered the hallway where a psychologist had been murdered and a social worker had been held hostage and raped by 3 patients that had gotten into the locked area. this incident had happened many years before. we had to use the bathroom and when we entered we noticed that the hallway was extremely quiet, all the doors to the offices were locked and we made sure we locked the two doors we entered. as i unlocked the bathroom door, i heard a male voice moan loudly! i didn't want to appear crazy so i slowly went to close the bathroom door because i wasn't about to go in there! as i closed the door there was a heavy sigh from this same male voice! as i locked the bathroom the door i asked my fellow nurse if she had heard "that". she looked at me in shock and stated she had! we slammed the door shut, ran down the hall, unlocked one set of doors to get out and then got out the last set of doors to the main hallway! we were so scared that we had to call security to come and check out the hallway where we had been. they checked every office and the bathroom and told us that there was no one anywhere in that hallway. needless to say neither of us ever went down that hallway again unless it was daytime and there were numerous other people in the hall. i know that male voice was the voice of the psychologist that was murdered there as he tried to save the social worker from those 3 insane patients!

this scared me.....

working in that place must have take alot of courage...

like ur dealing with criminals who are murderers and insane people!

i don't think i would ever want to work in a place like this...

i dread our psyc sem. although it's much better than this....lol

[Guest393655]

My mother died last year in one of the ICUs in the hospital I work at. Our family came to accept she was not going to ever come back to us so we made the decision to take her off life support. I was there holding her hand as she passed and did not see any of the black shadow people or felt any presence like other people in this thread have. Just before she died a RN came in and said they needed the bed and my mom would be moved to a private room in the step down unit to pass. I work on the step down unit and said to my mom (who was in a hepatic coma) "please don't die on my unit because then I will forever have to walk in that room and be reminded of this". Well not 3 seconds later she let go and passed away, after she had been off the vent 13 hours and hanging on. An amazing example of how a mother protects their own until the end. Since then I sometimes feel a heavy feeling over my shoulder when charting at night like someone is standing right there. It sometimes makes me feel dizzy and there's always a cold spot that accompanies the feeling. I had a baby 5 months ago and have his pictures all over my Kardex binder. Many times late at night I feel that same heavy presence and cold spot around where I lay my book. It makes me want to cry because I always wonder if that is my mom looking at her grandson and if she is trapped here in the hospital instead of moving onto someplace better. I don't dare tell my co-workers they'd probably think I'm nuts or imagining it because I'm upset my mother died where I work.

Before this job I worked in a nursing home and the staff there swears that ghosts are real. They often see residents who passed on walking the halls and hear people calling their names when noone is there. I guess you just have to be open minded to all of this to see and hear what is going on in another world around us.

[Libitina]

As stated previously, I don't believe in ghosts or the supernatural. This story was told to me by colleagues.

A AAA had been brought to theatre but they decided at the last minute not to proceed as the patient was far too poorly. On wheeling the patient back to the ward the patient started Cheyne Stoking (sp?). Wheeled them into the lift and pressed the button. The door went half way across and stopped, then opened. Pressed the button again and the same thing happened. Pressed it for the 3rd time and it worked perfectly. The staff looked around and the patient had died.

Upon returning to theatres and stepping out of the lift, there was apparently a cold spot outside the lift doors. My colleagues reckon the patients ghost had stepped out of the lift and was trying to get back to a&e where their partner had been when they last saw them.

[MissSpectacular]

i have become a believer in the supernatural since starting nursing.

First bad experience with a malevolent spirit is while I was working as a PCT at a ventilator hospital. We had one room on the C wing that was reputed as haunted. I was working a night shift one night and the call light to the room was going off nonstop. Every time I went into the room, the patient (a younger woman on a vent) was beet red, teary-eyed and pointing frantically around the room. She wrote out on her communication board there was a black animal in her room. I checked quite a few times and found nothing. About 3 am she pulls the light again. I went into the room and she's pointing frantically at the bathroom. I opened the bathroom door and I SWEAR TO GOD.....

....a large black CREATURE scuttled past me, with gutteral noises, and slipped beneath the bed. I panicked and turned on all the lights and looked under the bed. Nothing was there. I was terrified. I left all the lights on and left the room. I started to tell the RN what had happened and she cut me off. ''You saw the little black animal in 22, huh?"

Second one was at the LTC center I work at now. Bed 2 of that room is a death sentence. Nurses have reported being bumped, pushed, had cups knocked out of their hand. One male nurse reported the TV stand moved of it's own accord and slammed into him while he attempted to care for the patient in bed 2. Another CNA sustained a cut on the back of her leg when a wheelchair smacked into her on it's own. I was told by a patient shortly before she died "Do you see him? He's behind you. He's going to kill me, and then he's coming for her. He says so." I get the vibe that something in that room does not want the patients in the second bed cared for.