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...

[Bhavana]

I have experienced many unexplained things while at work but the one I want to share is of a personal manner. My olderst son who is almost 13 at the age of 3 on the night of December 7, 2001 caught on fire at his father's house. 20% of his body had 2nd and 3rd degree burns. He spent almost a month in an Intensive Care Burn Unit. I was either with him or at a near by Ronald McDonald house. When he came home I had a lot of nursing care to give to my son, I learned more about being a burn nurse than I ever wanted to. When I would try to explain to my son who was four that I knew that what I did hurt and I was sorry I had to do it to help him get better it was a hared thing to do. I once asked him who helped him get better at the hospital and he would say the doctors, nurses, mommy and NiNi. NiNi is what my son called my grandmother. This all seems normal I know but my grandmother had died August 1, 2000, almost 4 months before the fire. I didn't feel creeped out just peaceful knowing that my grandmother is still around and helped my son feel better. The two of them were close and she called him her prince. I was thankful that she was not alive to see this happen to him but I guess she knew anyway and was there with him when he needed her the most. My son who is almost 13 now has no memory of any of the events just the scars. I have memories that are hard to live with but as I write this I think that somehow my grandmother was and is still with me to help throught the tough times in life. Thanks Noni for looking after my boys when I am not able to be there. You are still very much loved and missed. Your princess, the mother of the prince.

this made me want to cry...happily of course...and I believe it 100 percent! Though I would imagine our loved ones who have died have better things to do than come back here and hang around us, I do believe that when they are needed, and especially by an innocent child that they loved, that they can and do come back. Your baby was still young and open minded enough to see and feel her presence. How awesome that she was there for him to help him get thru what must have been a horrible experience. I am glad you got through it too! I can't even imagine how hard that must of been.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

Well I am going to share my non nursing story with you guys since I am only a nursing hopeful at this point... also its a dream story.

On June 9th 2005 I woke from a dream where I was in a container of some sort, holding on to my daughter for dear life. The Container was rolling and wrenching and I felt smothered. I was crying to God the whole time to protect my daughter. In the end of the dream my daughter and I were walking towards the hottest white light you could ever imagine. I woke up hyperventalating, crying, sweating, shaking and just so scared. It took me a few seconds to realize that I had been dreaming. I immediatly told my husband who just blew me off and got up and got ready for work. I was still crying and stuff so I called my best friend. Christy (best friend) managed to calm me down and talk to me. The thing that she said to me that really stuck with me was " Carla, maybe God was trying to show you that dying isn't really that bad."

I went about my day and calmed down, but around 3 am the next morning my Best Friends husband called and told me that his wife and daughter died in a car accident that afternoon. It was a very horrible accident, hit at a high rate of speed by a drunk driver and both of them died upon impact.

All these years later her words are all that I need to know that she was ok.

When she told you that dying isn't really that bad. That was also her gift to you. Isn't that wonderful. Thank you for posting your story.:hug:

[oklahomagal]

When she told you that dying isn't really that bad. That was also her gift to you. Isn't that wonderful. Thank you for posting your story.:hug:

I have always looked at it as a gift. I had several dreams about her family in the months following and they always seemed to come true.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

That's wonderful. I love that kind of stuff.

[sevensonnets]

This story is not nursing related but have to tell it. Years ago I dreamed that my mother's best friend called me because she said after numerous attempts my mother would not answer the phone. She said "Tell her I'm going away on a long trip but I love her and I'll see her in heaven." I was not frightened of this and agreed to tell my mom. I never got a chance. In the morning she called me and said that her friend's daughter just called---she had died in her sleep during the night.

[yousoldtheworld]

I have a fairly recent one! It's pretty mild, but interesting (and to me, touching) nonetheless. Sorry for the novel, I have to include the backstory. :)

I work at a children's home for the developmentally disabled. As such, we have a lot of heartbreaking stories - plenty of kids who were born disabled (which is sad but probably unavoidable), but also plenty of abuse and accident victims, as well. Those are the ones I tend to bond with the most.

In particular, there was one boy I just adored. He was born healthy, but when he was 8 he drowned in a wavepool. He was dead, but they were able to resuscitate him. However, the damage to his brain was profound, and he had to come live in our facility. He had to have a trach, he was tubefed, and he was unable to do much with his body. He couldn't communicate, though he was able to make eye contact. He would often get anxious when being cared for and would start to cough or tense up, though he was perfectly relaxed when a few certain people took care of him.

My first day there, I felt an instant connection to this boy. He was the most beautiful kid you can imagine, and it became my personal mission to help ease some of his anxiety and fear. As such, he was always very serene when I was assigned to his group. His mother even commented on how peaceful he seemed when I was there, and she said she never worried when she knew I was working because it was obvious how I cared for him.:redpinkhe

We started to notice that he was just not right. Despite his tubefeed, he was losing weight and just looking awful, and he wasn't voiding or having bms as normal. They did some cultures and labs, and could find no infections or anything. It took the doctors MONTHS to think to do an xray, and they discovered that somehow, his feed tube had moved down into his intestine - no food was getting to his stomach, and he was essentially slowly starving to death.

That day, they sent him out to have corrective surgery. It seemed to go fine, he stayed there and recovered for nearly a week, and then he returned to our facility on my shift. He was a little pale, but seemed okay. I bathed and dressed him for bed, kissed his cheek, and told him I had missed him. About an hour after I left, he passed away.

I was off work for the next few days. I went to his funeral to pay my respects to his family (imagine losing your little boy twice, almost 5 years apart to the day). I said goodbye to him.

When I returned to work a few days later, I was scheduled to work on another wing. The girl who had been scheduled to be on wing 5 (where the boy who passed had been) started having severe abdominal pains on her way to work. She called off and went to the emergency room, and I got bumped to wing 5. (They never figured out why she had the pains...creepy). The girls told me that wing 5 had felt really heavy since the little boy had passed...nothing too weird had happened, but just a strange feeling.

As soon my nurse said I was going to be on Wing 5 and gave me report, an emergency light started going off. Now, my facility does not have call lights...the residents are not able to understand or use them. There are, however, emergency lights to pull in case of seizures, etc.

We saw that the emergency light was going off in the little boy's room. We ran as fast as we could, wondering who could have pulled it, since the aides from that wing were out giving report to us. When I stepped into the room, we saw that it was the light next to the boy's former bed that had been pulled. I glanced at the bed and could have sworn I saw him in it for a second, laying with his stuffed dog, as usual. I first thought another resident had wandered down and climbed into his bed, but when I turned the light on, nothing was there. We turned off the emergency light, and the heavy feeling seemed to lift. Everything from then on seemed normal.

The nurses said he was probably waiting to say goodbye to his favorite aide.

[brigaily2000]

me too.

[cbcle]

Not a ghost story or nursing related, but a parental isntinct story: When I first started working nights at a hospital almost 5 years ago I had two daughters at the time, 2 1/2 and 1. We were living in a 2nd story condo and my girls share a bedroom with a window. My husband, who has always been a much stronger parent than I, was in charge of bedtime because he never wavered when the kids yelled and fussed. He was very firm about bedtime and once the door to the bedroom closed, he never ever ever opened it until morning.

One night I was at work and I called my husband to see how the night was going.

"You'll never believe what just happened." he said. "I was at my computer playing a game and you know how sometimes your imagination wanders? Well I was overcome by a vision in my mind of firetrucks and ambulances and emergency vehicles coming to the house and I just had a strange feeling about the kids falling out the window. I felt like I had to check on the girls and sure enough the girls had somehow gotten the window open and were throwing things out the window."

During this time my oldest daughter was really into Peter Pan and I could easily have seen her creating some pretending game with the younger one where they fly out the window off to Neverland. When I got home from work that morning I was walking under their window on my way from the car to the door and on the bush were tiny little girl socks that they had been throwing out the window. It gave me chills seeing how easily they could have falled. I don't know what it was that prompted my husband to make an exception to his "closed door policy" and check on the girls but I am so grateful every day. There are so many things in this world that we can't explain. Love this thread...

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

I worked with a girl years ago who was thinking of going into nursing training who told me this story.

Her Dad (who had died when she was young) had been in the army & they moved around a lot. Well they had moved to a new army base. She went into to her new room to start unpacking & 2 get organised. Just as she went to hit the light switch, she felt a hand grab her around the wrist so she screamed, & coulnd't shake off this hand as it was holding her tightly. Her Mum came running in & turned on the light. Well to their amazement, this girl had a bruise of what appeared to be finger marks around her wrist & we all know it takes a while for bruises to appear. She had had no other injuries or accidents to account for the bruises. Other strange things happened when they were there as well, blankets would be repeatedly pulled off the bed at night when no-one was there, stuff moved around when no-one was there, hearing voices and laughter etc.

After her Dad died, she was left his army trunk that used to hold all his stuff when he was moving around. Well she used to be out (lived on her own) and the trunk would be open sometimes - it had a lock with a key in it, and some of her Dad's things would appear in there that had been put away in storage. No-one had access to her unit at the time. There also used to be black hand marks on the access hatch to the roof, that hadn't been there the day before. She thought she was being burgled, but nothing was ever missing and forensic dusting showed no prints at all. It was so bizarre, she never could explain it. She thought maybe it was her Dad's way of looking over her and letting her know he was still around.

[Spydered]

I was working in the nicu when we had a threat of a tornado. Some Nurses got pulled to go to a sister hospital in town to assist in the disaster plan. When all was over one of the nurses returned with this story: She was assissting the nurses in giving some meds before pulling all into the hallways. Every pt she went to said they already had their meds from that nice nurse in the white uniform and hat. She realized after she left that its been awhile since a nurse has worn a hat. That story revealed the urban ledgen of Nurse Betty. Story goes she had an affair with a married md, became pregnant then agreed to allow him to perform an abortion on her on the 2nd floor OR room.She died and he went to jail. She never left the hospital and was seen frequently. The local newspaper would do an article of her every year around halloween on her sightings. The hospital has since been replaced with college dorms. Hmmmm i wonder if any students have seen her?[/QUO

Wow, a ghost that can physically give meds, that's pretty good!

I guess they can be very useful too...:)

[zrach]

I love stories like these. Keep em coming :)

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

Originally Posted by Jdon

I was working in the nicu when we had a threat of a tornado. Some Nurses got pulled to go to a sister hospital in town to assist in the disaster plan. When all was over one of the nurses returned with this story: She was assissting the nurses in giving some meds before pulling all into the hallways. Every pt she went to said they already had their meds from that nice nurse in the white uniform and hat. She realized after she left that its been awhile since a nurse has worn a hat. That story revealed the urban ledgen of Nurse Betty. Story goes she had an affair with a married md, became pregnant then agreed to allow him to perform an abortion on her on the 2nd floor OR room.She died and he went to jail. She never left the hospital and was seen frequently. The local newspaper would do an article of her every year around halloween on her sightings. The hospital has since been replaced with college dorms. Hmmmm i wonder if any students have seen her?[/QUO

Wow, a ghost that can physically give meds, that's pretty good!

Is this her?