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...

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

originally posted by bhavana

why are some people so peaceful at death and others so afraid?

excellent question

perhaps our past really does come back to haunt us?

perhaps we really do have to explain/defend the actions we have taken throughout our lives?

[Viviana, ASN, RN]

Is that like the help that never shows up?

Or the PCTs that I can never find?

[tencat]

witchcraft, or "wicca" as they call it, is for people who are desperate for attention, or power. Sort of silly if you ask me, don't they know there is no such thing as witches? I mean, I learned that in 1st grade.

One could make the same statements about Christians, or Muslims, or Buddhists..........kettle, meet pot

Keep these great stories coming!

[Bhavana]

I was on a very busy medicine unit. I had just gotten a pt up from er, so i was attempting to get him in and settled.All the doors to the rooms were very hard to open and very heavy (you know the kind that you pretty much have to body slam to open) well every time i started to go throught the hundred questions you have to ask the door would come flyin open, so after about the third time said well maybe the latch is messing up so i wiggled the handle, opened and closed the, door pulled on it ( im sure i looked like i should have been on a locked unit) feeling confident i turned to the pt and said i think its fixed now. As I smiled and started back to my questions the door flew open again.... this time the pt looked at me and said " you know what i dont think we are alone" we just stared at each other for about 10 seconds he said exactly what i was thinking.. so feeling a little spooked i hurried through my questions and went into the nursing station telling what had just happened the PCT looked at me and said were you in room 216 thats been happening in there and the bathroom door has been doing it too ever since Mrs>>>> had passed away last week.... yep every time i got a pt tothat room i always waited for the door to come open

I really believe this, I think that people's spirits do not always leave right away, sometimes they linger. My grandfather died when i was 4, and after he died, my grandmother left the house to stay with her daughter, my mom, for a little while. One day my mom and one of my other aunts went to the house to pick up some clothes for my grandmom. They walked into the house and were standing in the kitchen when they heard sounds from upstairs in my grandfather's sick room. They clearly heard feet hit the floor, as if someone was getting out of bed, and footsteps go across the floor. Both of them heard it, and my mom was so scared she wet her pants. Later, after my grandmother went back home, she told my mom that my grandfather was still in the house, that she heard him calling her, moving around, opening drawers etc. And I can say for sure that my grandmother was a practical and unemotional person, not superstitious or imaginative or anything like that. Very straight up and serious. If she said she heard my grandfather in that house, then she heard him. Whenever I went over, I refused to go upstairs alone, yet when we were there earlier before my grandfather died, which was all the time, I had no fear of going anywhere in the house, including upstairs to his room where he spent all his time once he got too sick. I was only 4, so my understanding of death was limited, but I had fear that I didn't have before he died.

Eventually my grandmom moved to a smaller place...and my grandfather, who was a very good person, probably went his way...though my grandmom did say that years later she woke up in the early dawn hours cause she heard her front door open. She went to the living room and there was Grandpop, in the suit he was buried in, standing by the door. She said "What the hell are you doing here?" and he said "I've come to take you with me, Marie." She told him she wasn't going anywhere, and went back to her bedroom....when she checked the living room again, he was gone.

[Miss De RN]

Once, when I was working as an LPN on the noc. shift in a LTC in Ohio a very strange thing happened. It was an older nursing home with intercoms in the halls so we can call each other if we need to,. All intercoms were in the off position until about 5 am. that was policy, so off they were. We were alll at the nurses station doing paper work for next "rounds" when a crackling noise came over the intercom an a voice came over "nothing for nothing is nothing" when we went to check it out all intercoms were off an all residents sleeping. werid, huh?

[griff3]

I am not a nurse either, but I have been reading the posts on this site and find them very interesting. My response to the story of the rose petals is this: I have heard that when angels are near, there is a sweet aroma, often of flowers in the air. Maybe this is something like that. Also, I feel that when you come in contact with a patient who seems "posessed", if you are saved, all you have to do is call on Jesus. Demons and evil things are subject to God's power and must obey. The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord - that includes the evil you may come in contact with in dealing with certain patients. Also, I believe that our loved ones who have gone before us, may often help those crossing over to the other side. Even though we may not see it with our human eyes, there is something out there. Heaven is real, and I believe that some catch a glimpse of what beauty is to come when they are in their final days.

[snowflakeprincess]

That explains it...May your Mom rest in peace! :heartbeat

[leenak]

I'm a super scaredy cat! I'm not even doing my pre-reqs yet, not sure if I can handle nursing if I have to deal with 'the other world' as well as this one :)

I wanted to tell a funny story though. I work in an office, nothing special about it but I was reading a few of these stories. I was feeling a bit creeped out and the feeling kind of stayed with me. Later on, I went to the bathroom, as I was opening the bathroom door, the toilet flushed, there was no one in there, I walked my butt right out of there.

[leenak]

Oh and I figure I'll share a few of my stories although none are really scary.

In terms of death/people knowing they are going, etc. When I was in high school, I had an uncle who was dying of AIDs and living at my grandparents house. Every day after school, I'd go over and help with whatever I could, do my homework and spend time with my uncle. He was sick for about a year but he was able to walk around the house and what not although he'd sometimes get really tired. Anyway, one night he looked at me in the eyes and I knew he had given up fighting and I knew he was going to die. He died early the next morning. I have felt his presence and there is a distinct smell that I associate with him, I don't smell it very often these days but I used to smell it quite a bit a few years after he died.

Also, we used to live in a house that had a room that was always cold, no matter how warm the rest of the house was at the time. My mom refused to use the room as a bedroom because it freaked her out so it was my play room. She said that she would often hear me talking to someone and when she came to ask me who I was talking to, I always told her 'the angels'. I don't remember that though. In the same house, sometimes you'd hear weird things and one day I was looking in the mirror and saw a white bird fly behind my head. When I turned around, there was no bird or anything.

A few years ago there was a strange incident when I was living alone. I had a digital clock with red numbers. I woke up in the middle of the night, looked at the clock when I noticed the numbers kept getting brighter and brighter and brighter until I said "stop it" and then they went back to their normal color/brightness. Of course it could've been a power surge or something but it freaked me out.

I've never outright seen any ghosts though. I hope I never do.

[HollyHobby]

Not really a nursing story; forgive me.

Back story: many years ago, my sister and our parents were in the car; Dad was driving. Dad was a quiet man and he drove on, expressionlessly, while Mom described what it was like to be married for such a long time. Mom and Dad had married young, and had remained very much in love for going on 35 years.

"When you've been married as long as I have," Mom said, "you know exactly what the other person is going to say or do before they can say or do it".

My Dad, who had until then appeared to not even be listening to the conversation, suddenly said, "I bet you don't know what I'm about to do".

Mom said, "Oh, yeah?", disbelievingly.

Without a word, Dad reached into his shirt, pulled out a fabric softener sheet, and handed it to her. We all (except Dad, who resumed appearing unresponsive) laughed until we cried. Bear in mind, now, that the particular type of fabric softener sheet was discontinued shortly thereafter.

A few years later, Dad died from lung CA. Mom was out of her mind with grief; I feared she would commit suicide. Instead, she remarried to a very nice gentleman whom she cared for very much, but who could not replace my Dad in her heart. Mom and my step-dad, Carl, built a new home together.

It was my parents' wedding anniversary and Mom was depressed, missing my Dad. Carl took her out to dinner to try to cheer her up. When they got home, he turned on the stereo to the oldies station they liked, and they danced together. The next song that came on was my Dad's song for my Mom: "I Don't Know Why I Love You Like I Do".

Mom couldn't help but start to cry. She excused herself and fled to the laundry room and started folding things, trying to distract herself. She pulled a shirt out of the dryer, and a fabric softener sheet fell out of it. Of course it was that same kind that Dad had handed to her in the car that day, the kind that had been discontinued many years before.

I like to think Dad played that song for her, and gave her the fabric softener sheet to assure her, in his own quirky way, that his love was still strong.

[CFitzRN, ADN]

That's a really cool story but I have a question: How can you tell one brand of fabric softener sheet from another? Don't they all look pretty similar (and none have the brand name on them)?

[cookziedough]

I worked on a Bariatrics unit which was previously a Pediatrics unit in one trauma center. This particular night I worked with 2 older patients and that particular night one nurse talked about how that week was an anniversary of a death of a pedia patient long ago. This patient's ghost usually bothers patients at this time of the year. I didn't really mind it at all as we all have heard of ghost stories in hospital. But this night became a very interesting night for me!

It started with my male, 78y.o. patient who called with his call light around 2300. He asked if there was a child on the floor because he's been noisy and he can't really sleep. I explained to him that visiting hours were over and he must have just heard the TV from the other patient in the room. I walked away from the room and was just about to sit down on a chair when the same patient called again. This time when I approached him he said "Please make him stop play with my feet!" I was beginning to think, "Oh, no... a night with one confused patient!" So, I did my nursing care and reoriented him to person, place and time. I was beginning to feel eerie after that but ignored it thinking that I was just playing games in my head. THEN, my other 80y.o. female patient across the hall rang her call light.

When I came into her room I noticed that she was covering her face with her blanket. I turned on the bigger light in the room just to make sure I won't see any "shadows". Then I asked her what she needed. She then slowly lowered the blanket and said this line: "Please make him stop play with my toes!" At this point, I was swept over by a very warm, eerie feeling. I tried to keep my composure and told her it might just be her SCD's bothering her. She said "No, it's the little boy who keeps touching my toes.":eek: The moment she said that I heard a very faint sound like a hum. I immediately told my patient "I'll be right back, okay?" and immediately left the room and went back to the nurses' station. I was so overwhelmed with a very eerie feeling that I had to ask a senior nurse to go check the patient. The two patients eventually went to sleep and didn't call thereafter.

I spent the rest of my shift scared and having to turn on the bright light every time I needed to get inside the patients' rooms! Spooky... it only happened that one night to me, though. I never had another scary incident like it ever again!