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...

Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

This isn't a nursing ghost story, though I have always wanted to be a nurse since I was 4 years old.

My Mum and her Mum were very spiritual. My grandmother was a protestant, she was also 'fey', an old Scottish term for seeing the future and knowing things. Anyway my Mum has some of this ability and so do I, but not as strong.

My Mum loved her Tarot cards and used to do seances when we were young. I wouldn't do it now, but back then, I thought it was just a harmless way to pass a hot night inside or a rainy, cold night. My Mum had quite often had the spirits of dead relatives 'visit' during a seance, where the room would sometimes get cold, or the lights would dim. My Mum could always see dark shapes and outlines all the time as well (I don't remember seeing anything like that), and these spirits would tell her things only she knew.

Well one night we were doing a seance, and we used a glass on a table surrounded by all the letters of the alphabet, and all the numbers from 1-0. My Mum had asked this spirit that was there Who are you? and the glass eventually moved to the letters and spelled out 'devil'! Well we were all shocked, and my Mum was saying something like go away you're not welcome here, and this glass spun around the table ON IT'S OWN multiple times, then shot towards the brick wall and just shattered! Well my older brother and his mates were there, one of his friends was religious (he was not doing the seance), and he always wore a big cross around his neck. He freaked out and held up the cross to the ceiling, and was yelling out: "Begone ye devil!!" (I remember the words he used were really old-fashioned), and he was chanting for Jesus to protect us! Outside just when he was chanting still, there was this MASSIVE crack of thunder and this rain (it had been a still, quiet night) just HURTLED down from the heavens!

After that my Mum either stopped the seances or did them less and less, and my brother's friend rarely came over, but we were all shaken up after that night. I'm sure I didn't sleep that night.

I have other stories worse than this if anyone wants to know.

Specializes in Lactation.
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I have other stories worse than this if anyone wants to know.

You have to share now that you teased us!! :lol2:

Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

OK I just boiled the kettle to make a cup of coffee, but that can wait!

My brother's friend Andrew (who is dead now), told my Mum and me this story years ago (I remembered some of these because I have practically been reading this thread all day long).

His Mum used to do seances as well, and using the Wigi board (dunno how that is spelled), but it was a popular past time in the 70's when I was young.

Anyway he told us they were all sitting down at the table using the glass and summoning these spirits, when the chairs they were sitting on ACTUALLY levitated in the air - with them sitting on them still! and they whirled around the table. My brother's friend said it was the most terrifying experience of his life. Of course they jumped off the chairs and ran, but my brother's friend Andrew looked back and all these empty chairs were whirling around the table, and the table had levitated into the air as well! I can't remember if they said any chants at all, but I do remember him saying something like they took the furniture after that to the local tip, or burned it out the back.

I thought this story was all a big hoo ha, until the glass shattering thing happened in Mum's house, now I'm inclined to believe it!!

I'm gonna go have my coffee now but I'm sure I will rememeber some more stories.

I believe those boards attract the devil and evil spirits. Your stories just reaffirmed that.

::shivers::

Specializes in M/S, ICU, ICP.

i am enjoying this entire thread. i recall some ghost stories as well once i started reading, but my weirdest thing is right before someone dies i will smell this sent that reminds me of funeral home flowers.

usually within the next day or two someone i know dies or if its on a patient hallway, one of the patients will go sour and end up coding and dying. it is the weirdest thing. it used to creep me out but after so many years i just acknowledge it and keep my guard up and on ready.

i love reading these stories, but i have difficulty believing in the whole paranormal thing. but, i have the highest respect for nurses for all that they do for humanity. therefore, it almost seems like a sin to doubt or tout a logical explanation. so i’ll just mosey along and keep on reading.

i honestly don’t see how one cannot become emotionally involved in such a field. so i lift my glass high, and i toast all nurses, caregivers and providers in hospitals, hospices and private care facilities around the world. here’s to you – thank you.

i am enjoying this entire thread. i recall some ghost stories as well once i started reading, but my weirdest thing is right before someone dies i will smell this sent that reminds me of funeral home flowers.

usually within the next day or two someone i know dies or if its on a patient hallway, one of the patients will go sour and end up coding and dying. it is the weirdest thing. it used to creep me out but after so many years i just acknowledge it and keep my guard up and on ready.

how long have you special sense of smell?

Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.
i am enjoying this entire thread. i recall some ghost stories as well once i started reading, but my weirdest thing is right before someone dies i will smell this sent that reminds me of funeral home flowers.

usually within the next day or two someone i know dies or if its on a patient hallway, one of the patients will go sour and end up coding and dying. it is the weirdest thing. it used to creep me out but after so many years i just acknowledge it and keep my guard up and on ready.

wow! are you fay like my grandmother?

Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

My uncle (my Mum's brother) told us all this weird story when he moved to live near us after his marriage disintegrated.

When he was very young he was kind of told by the police to go into the navy, because he had a bad childhood (drunken, abusive father, very poor) like my Mum, and he'd got into a lot of trouble. Anyway in the navy in those days, every guy (there were no women in the navy then) drank heavily - it was kind of like a tradition.

My uncle had got off his boat which had docked late, and he was making his way back home to go see a few people. Well he'd missed the last bus (bus services - in the Scottish highlands especially - were few and far between then), so he decided to hitchhike out to the country. Well a car eventually came along, it was a fairly old-fashioned type and he got in and this guy chatted to him for a while. My uncle said he only realised later that this guy was dressed very old-fasioned as well, which in the highlands and outlying areas was not so uncommon then. They talked about different things (my uncle can't remember what), but he said this guy was a bit strange, didn't know some of the expressions my uncle used, or things he mentioned. Many people out there then lived fairly isolated lives, so it wasn't too unusual. So this guy drove for a while, then stopped near this cemetary and said: 'I can't take you any further.' My uncle thanked him and got out, the car drove off and kind of disappeared, but because it was so dark, my uncle thought his mind was playing tricks. He was near a town so walked to the local pub and got a drink, and was telling the publican how this old-fasioned guy had kindly given him a lift. Well the publican & his wife looked at each other and described this guy and his car down to a tee. My uncle was curious, asking: 'How did you know what he was wearing, is he a local around here?' The publican's wife told my uncle the guy's name and said he used to be like the shire land owner many years ago, who was driving one day, picked up a hitchhiker and was murdered! They also said: 'Did he drop you off at the cemetary up the road?' My uncle said yeh, and the wife said: 'That's where he's buried, some people have had lifts from him, watched his car drive off, and actually seen him walk or float across the cemetary to where he is buried. He won't drive anyone further than that cos that is near where he died, and where he's buried in the family plot!!'

Well, my uncle said he can remember the smell of the seats in the car, he could have reached across and touched this guy, he could even smell cigarette smoke in the car, but this guy was a bit 'wooden', not really animated very much. And he remembers the car kind of just disappearing out of sight.

He also said that after the car had driven off, he remembered there were no smells of petrol (gas) fumes at all, and and no clouds of smoke from the exhaust in the cold country air. And because there weren't too many cars around at that time, you would have smelled the fumes out in the open air.

I asked my uncle if he'd been drinking before this happened, and he said no, because they had just docked the boat and cos he wanted to get home, he'd decided to hitch hike to get home, instead of going to a pub as he'd normally do. The first drink he'd had was when he'd got to that country pub AFTER he'd seen this ghost.

ADD: Sorry not nursing but just had to put this on here out of interest's sake!

Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.
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.

What a lovely story, thanks so much for sharing.

Caz

Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.
Okay..JW's don't have "exorcism"...Been a JW for 32 years (yes...that means my whole life!) and have never ever ever heard of an exorcism for JW's. My FIL is (and my grandfather was before he died) an elder and um...well...still never heard of it!

However, yes, I fully believe that demons attach to things. I knew an older JW sister that used to be a witch. I mean hard core, make tables walk across the room "witch". She knew that demons were attached to things and that is how alot of "magic" works. Her stories were enough to make your blood turn cold!

I finally got around to catching up with some of this thread.

I had studied with the JWs 20+ years ago, and this elder told me all these fascinating stories re how he helped get these demons out of people. As I said in my posting re this, I don't know the terminology they use (I can't remember the word/s he used), but it was like an exorcism - something akin to that. This elder was so interesting to talk to, and he used to have meetings with JW people with the other elders, to decide what to do to help them.

If you know the terminology I would like to hear about it, otherwise my brother is a JW elder and I will email him, unless the Truth has changed since I talked to this elderly gentleman (he was quite old at the time I met him so he is very possibly deceased now).

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