What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

Nurses General Nursing Nursing Q/A

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...

We had, in our ICU, a frequent flier named Ricky. He was non-compliant, obscene to staff and so mean, his last gesture to his mother was flipping her the bird. The night he died, a little lady we had 2 rooms down, called staff to tell them of the man who was in her room. She was completely lucid and said she kept seeing a face in the window. She described Ricky to a T. Numerous patients had similar experiences and the incidences stopped only after we asked a priest to bless the room.

I work at a ltc at night and so far, I've not witnessed anything freaky or of the unnatural, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for something. That is when I'm not up to my elbows in work, which seems like the entire time I'm there. A ghost could probably come right up to me for a chat and I'd probably give him nightly prn's and send him off to bed without realizing it was a ghost, I'm so dang busy. A few weeks ago I experienced my first death as the charge nurse at this place. I sat with him because he was afraid of being alone and would cry out when anyone wasn't there with him. I called the family and told them to come, but they didn't get there in time. He died peacefully in my arms as I prayed for him and sang him a hymn. His last words were "Jesus, Jesus" I really think he saw Christ come for him or the angels or something. I felt priveleged to be a part of his passing and will never, ever forget him or his family. I hope one day he will pay me a visit there at the ltc. I know I would cry tears of joy to see him again. :wink2:

Specializes in previously Med/Surg; now Nursery.

The ER at my hospital is probably the most actively haunted. I worked nights as a tech while I was in school. The triage light would come on when the secretary would be in the station with us. One night was very active. Our only pt had been d/c'd. I cleaned the room and put a fresh sheet on the bed. When I came back by that room from putting the trash in the dirty utility room, the sheet was folded over on itself from the top and bottom (meeting in the middle). I fixed and went about my business. The next time I came by later the sheet was the same way again. I fixed it. Later we had a pt on that hall and I went to get vitals. The sheet was folded down at the top and bottom again. I told the nurses what was going on back there and we all agreed that it was "the ghost." I was going out to smoke under the ambulance hood. As I was walking by the cast room I could hear things being moved around in the supply room at the back of the cast room. I went to check and nothing was out of place even though I had just heard things being fumbled through loudly. I went outside and was trying to enjoy my smoke break, but the automatic doors kept opening and closing. I looked through the doors and could see all the nurses so none of them were near the automatic button to open it. There were no bugs flying about to set off the sensor. I finally said outloud something to the effect of "Hey, I'm tired. It has been a long night so leave me, the beds, and the supply closets alone and let me enjoy my break!" The door didn't open anymore, the beds were left made, and the rest of the night was uneventful. No one had any clue as to who the ghost could be. It was a fairly new ER at the time.

I have more, but that is all I have time for right now.

What I'm about to tell doesn't apply to nursing other than the fact that I was in nursing school when it happened. A few months ago my two son's best friend was tortured and murdered. It was done by a jealous exboyfriend of the girl that he was dating. My sons were devastated because they had grown up with him. They both kept saying, "Mom, he was like a brother to me." On the day of the viewing, I was getting ready to go to my nursing classes. That morning I looked in the mirror and said God, please show me how to help my sons get through tonight. Well, I went on to school, and the professor started talking about his best friend that had committed suidide. He made the statement that he was "like a brother to me". Well, that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He talked all through class about how he dealt with it, and by the time class was over, I was crying. I went back to my car and went around the car to put my books in the back. This was not the side of the car that I had gotten my books out of. I looked down and there lying on the pavement was seven pennies, all showing heads up. To know the significance of this you would have to go back to the week before my sons friend, Stacy, was murdered. We were at my sons house and were the only one's in the house at the time. I looked down on the floor and saw a penny. Stacy told me to pick it up, and I told him, no, that it was on tails and that was unlucky. I know that Stacy left those pennies there for me that day to let me know that he was ok and that my sons would be ok. There weren't any cars parked beside of mine when I pulled into the parking lot, and there weren't any beside of it when I came out of class. I've still got those pennies and wouldn't take a million dollars for them. I know from my own personal experience that the people we love never leave us. They are always there watching over us.

One night I was taking care of an elderly man that had a self inflicted gun shot wound to the head-he had been through surgery and in ICU on max support and was anticapated to die . The family had been in and said their good byes and had made the man an organ donor. My job was to maintain the body until herniation of the brain and call CORE so they could do their job. All of a sudden , the monitor alarmed that his blood pressure had jumped to 230/120 heart rate 150 then just as quickly came back to normal..herniation had occured as I walked into the room alone, ther above the head of his bed was like a fog had moved in or some kind of vapor just hanging over the patient..no one else in the room. I ran from the room to get someone toverify this for me but by the time I could get anyone to believe me and come back to the room...it was gone.

I was never sure if death occured when the heart stopped or the brain was dead I think I know the answer now.

When I was a student nurse, I had a terminal cancer patient on my ward and had been caring for her for about a week (very sweet lady). I left work that Wednesday, went home, took a shower and went to bed, fell asleep and dreamt that I saw my ca patient. She was dressed in a flowing white night gown (hey this is Jamaica, we dont wear white flowing night gowns...its too hot!) looking so beautiful . She said,'thank you for everything that you did for me, I will never forget you'. I woke up at about 8:30pm, there about, feeling really weird and somewhat... concerned, so, I called the hospital, spoke to the nurse and told her that I was concerned about my patient and just wanted to know how she was doing and the nurse said she died.......less than 20 mins ago. I was totally blown away.

Sandy

Specializes in LTC, Subacute Rehab.
It was the middle of the Month of April 1995. I was working at a LTC facility, and had gone outside to smoke a cigarette with a coworker. Being the middle of April in Oklahoma you tend to see some strange cloud formations. My friend and I saw these clouds that looked like the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and they were headed toward OKCity. We thought nothing about it except it was a very strange cloud formation. The 19th of April (which was about 3-4 days later) we had the bombing of our Federal Building. Coincidence? I don't know. But like my heading says-this is the first time I have ever told anyone except my husband. I don't know if Sharlene told anyone or not. I'm not sure if any one would believe me or not!

Now this one creeped me out. This is the first time I've told this story...

On 10 September 2001, I was walking home from school (8th grade), and I noticed an interesting cirrus cloud formation - I swear it looked just like a huge bald eagle with wings stretched across the sky.

Y'all know what happened the next day.

I work in a ltc facility and we have had numerous reports from pts that they have seen a little boy. This boy comes in their rooms, turns their call lights on and off, throw things on the floor. This facility used to be an orphanage!! Also there are stories of a oldfashioned nurse in the whole white dress and hat, would be seen going down the hall late at night doing her bed check and would go into someones room and stay there for a couple minutes if they were really sick or about to die. Well I guess one aide seen her awhile back and refused to go down that hall for a week, the persons room she went in just came back from the hospital still really sick.:uhoh21:

When I worked in a LTC facility, we had the same reports of little children. Several of the residents would start asking us about who the children were. None of us ever saw any kids, but the residents would swear they were there. Some of them would report that they had kept them up half the night. One woman told us that they were sitting on the bed across the hall looking at her. Sure enough, within a day or two, one of the residents would die. I thought perhaps that it was just something about the facility. I later went to work at an area hospital. One of my patients asked who the children were that were in the hall. There had been no children on the floor that day. That night, the patient died. Now, if anyone asks me who the children are and I can't find any kids around, you can bet that I keep an extra watch on everyone.

I work on an oncology unit and we have two specific rooms in which you can feel something lay a hand on your back. Every time I turn to see if someone is behind me and there is either no one or the patients family member is sitting down in the chair across the room. Several of us have heard our names being whispered as we walk down the hallway between these two rooms. And last but not least, we had a young mother die who was in her late thirties and she smelled like flowers, this was her natural scent. When she died the room was cleaned but her scent remained for three days. Several staff members reported feeling very sad, to the point of tears whenever they entered the room over the next few days.

We have residents that do the same thing right now. One specifically will come up and ask me about the children and will ask me where their parents are. Since I've read this thread it kind of freaks me out that maybe she IS seeing children. I just thought it was part of her Alz./dementia. This resident will go on and on about those children for hours and she wants the nurses to help her go find their parents. :uhoh21:

I had something FREAKY happen to me yesterday! We have one Alzheimer resident who loves to yank hair, I happen to have very long hair and he loves to sneak up on me and yank the dickens outta my ponytail. Well, I was helping him get dressed, both his arms were halfway in the long sleeves of his shirt, both of his hands were still deep in the sleeves and SOMETHING yanked my ponytail! There was noone else within 20 feet of me! This man can't really talk, but right as it happened he started laughing this wild laugh, I can still hear it. He isn't dead or anything, but I know that he couldn't have yanked it... or could he? :chair:

Specializes in PACU, ED.

I am in nursing school but my wife has been a nurse for 27 years and has worked Hospice for 16 years. Experiences she has had have cemented her belief in angels. Many times she has been interviewing a patient who has seen other people in the room with her. She could not see them but the patient could see and hear them. Often they would see and hear children playing. At one hospice house they had a therapy dog who lived in the facility. Shotze would cruise the halls and seek out families in crisis. He tended to spend most of his time at the rooms of people who were about to be discharged celestially.

I experienced a spirit when I worked nights on a drilling rig in Oklahoma. I was a derrick hand and part of my duties were to manage the pit system which controlled the drilling fluid. A particular hammer that I used would move around the pits, always ending up where I needed it to be. Rarely did anyone else wander the pits at that time of night and they knew to leave my tools alone. At times I would get a feeling that I should check out one pump or another. Everytime I did, I would find a leak that was just starting to form. This convinced me that there was a spirit and that it was a derrick hand like myself. I asked my driller if anyone had ever died on the rig and he was adamant that nobody had ever died there. I told him I thought a derrick hand ghost was helping me. He didn't believe me. A week later my driller approached me and demanded to know who had told me about the dead derrick hand. He had asked an older driller who had been with the rig from construction. On the second day, a derrick hand was killed in a terrible accident, crushed on the drilling floor. My driller was freaked out but I was calm since I already knew the ghost was friendly, even helpful to me.

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