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...

Th elderly client I mentioned in an earlier post that had a figure go into her room has been in the hospital since last thursday. She has aspiration pneumonia. She is not getting better, but worse Please keep her in mind. It is very sad for us.

Specializes in LTC.

I work in LTC and an older nurse says to tie a knot in the sheet to keep the resident from passing on your shift. Anyone else heard this before?

is it sick that i thought this was brilliant? :devil:

yes!!!!!

Specializes in Plastics. General Surgery. ITU. Oncology.

That tying a knot thing is a VERY old superstition. When I trained back in the Dark Ages I remember a Sister telling me that there could be no knots in the room where a patient was dying as this would prevent a peaceful death.

I also heard the same from midwives who would allow nothing tied or knotted as it would impede the birth.

It must have to do with an association with loosening the ties between worlds. Magical thinking. A knot is a blockage and must be untied to permit passage.

Specializes in Med/Surg; Surgery; Ambulatory Care.

Early one morning i had a patient pass away around 7:30 right when change of shift occurred. I was assigned this patient only to perform morgue care after the family came in to pay their respects. I took a CNA with me to perform the morgue care. The patient was in Bed A, while Bed B, by the window, was empty. While we were getting ready to place him in the bag, Bed B's television suddenly turned on displaying static and then a movie. Neither of us were anywhere near the tv controls. We both said, "Did you do that?!?" When both of us realized neither of us had turned the television on, we hurried up and finished as fast as we could and got the heck out of that room! Scary!

Th elderly client I mentioned in an earlier post that had a figure go into her room has been in the hospital since last thursday. She has aspiration pneumonia. She is not getting better, but worse Please keep her in mind. It is very sad for us.

Ok, I have one more human haunting. I lived in Erie Pa. at the time and worked at a Nursing Home, that had been just horrible, but was improving. The staff was young, motivated and sometimes well, a bit unpredictable. I for one, brought my dog to work in my truck on nice Fall or Spring nights. (the nusg home was out in the country) I figured she'd sleep at home or in the truck, and on my two 15 min breaks and 1/2 hour lunch, I'd go out and let the dog play and take a little walk. One day was just horrible, so I asked an aide if she'd have time to let my dog out. She said fine, all went well, and after a while, the dog spent a lot more time out of the truck on smoke breaks with the staff than in the truck. One night, a staff decided my Large Black Lab, German Shepard mix was just what the residents of the Nursing home needed to cheer them up. Mind you it was about 2 in the am.

I was on the hall passing meds, or doing treatments or something, when I heard what sounded like running and saw a blur of black flash by. I shook my head and thought "Nahh, that couldn't be my dog that just ran past." 15 or so minutes passed by and I had a another "?!" momment. I made my way to the nurses station where all angelic faces said "Oh no, Molly's not in here, she's in the Truck." I apologized!!!! Then about 5 minutes later my dog runs up the hall past me, into a resident's room and then back out again. I was hot on the dogs heels and locked him back in the truck. A resident later told me she was "afraid of that dog." I assured her the dog was no longer in the building. Apparently, there were several residents who related there was a large black dog in their room at night. The DON thankfully never asked anyone directly if there had been a "real dog" in the building, but she was concerned enough to post a memo reviewing several policies of the Nsg Home. The one highlighted by our charge nurse was. "No dogs or Cats may visit residents in Nursing Home without prior approval of administration." My Molly has gone on to dog heaven but I hope she comes to find me when it's time for me to go. I for one will never be afraid of the black dog under my bed!

Our patient came home Friday. She looks to be about the same as usual, but she has oxygen and nebulizer treatments. She hates the nebulizer. She gave me a scare when I went to change her and her respirations were a little bit more than I expected before I changed her. She is tube fed, but she drools alot, and older staff said it would be better for her if she died. Had me crying all the way home. But she calmed down, maybe she will make it. Maybe the figure was just a friendly visit. My boss said she has seen that figure herself.

At least I got confirmation on the ghostly presence.

Specializes in ICU.

A pt died 2 nights ago suddenly, after a handful of codes. The family finally said no more, and changed him to DNR so he could pass peacefully. 24 hrs passed, no one in that room since him because of low census. It was a very easy going night so many of us were gathered near the code pagers etc. when one pager went off. The paged called a code blue from that patient's room. We all looked at each other, realized no alarms were going off (technically our alarms WILL go off before the pager if a code is on the unit), and proceeded with "what the hell is going on" looks. At that moment, we realized that 24 hrs earlier, exactly, our pt in that room had passed.

Queue the whole unit rubbing the goosebumps on their arms..

That's not even the haunted room of the unit!

Second hand telling (worked night before and after) and not a ghost, per se, but supernatural. Pt had been CTD for a week after coding a few times in the ICU, DNR/DNI. The night he finally died, he would be mumbling and talking to his wife, who'd died suddenly a few months before. He'd be alert and saying that's who he's talking to, even after confirming she'd died. Finally, he passed. Doc called it. Looked at his telemetry and his last heart beat was the same time his wife was declared.

My mother was dying of cancer at the same time as my ex father in law was dying of emphasema. My mom died first. We informed my ex father in law and he said to tell her he would see her in a weeks time. He died exactly one week later.

I was a CNA before I was a nurse...and witnessed some truly SPOOKY things.Here is my first encounter while working as an aide:

It was a weekend morning, quiet, early.I had arrived on duty to the"easier"hall.Working with another brand new aide (this is why we got the easy hall, we were total newbies)I remember the cool early morning sun shining into the building.The kind of sun you get in really spring when the air is fresh and scrubbed clean from the nights rain.

As we got rounded, working together, we were told by the nurse that Bettie had passed away, and that we would both be staying on the hall while everyone was dining to ready her for the morgue, or a possible visit from family.

One big catch: nether of us had ever seen a corpse, let alone readied a body.

We were already spooked, and soon found ourselves alone on the wing with a dead lady.

She was a favorite resident, so we talked to her and shared stories while we worked, trying to remember our training. It was unnerving, as you could sense you worked with an empty and now very heavy shell.

We finished cleaning and dressing Betties body, pulled a fresh clean sheet over her, covering her face. And then pulled the privacy curtain in the shared room.

Residents returned from their morning meal and we rushed about.The door to Betties room was open, and I couldn't help but to glance at the pulled curtain as I rushed by time after time.

After several passes to and from the linen cart I saw that someone had finally arrived.His dark pants and shoes were visable under the curtain, the attire was indicative of family on their way home from church, or that the mortician had arrived.

Some time later, in that lull after the post breakfast rush,I asked our nurse," what shall we do about Betties room?"

And to me she replied "after the body is picked up, strip the bed, box her things"

"is her family gone?"I asked. "They are not coming"she replied,"the morgue will not be here for a while" she told me.

"No one has been here?"

"No, it is still early"

.......the tailored pressed pants, the formal wingtip shoes....who had been standing at the foot of Betties bed? ....I knew her visitor was not of our realm.

And ofcourse I checked, her corpse was still there.

A little creepy story about one of my guys from the home I used to work at. I was the coordinator, so when things happened wrong, I was often called. Nothing scary happened with him, well what happened was scary but not in a BOO! way. I was paged that he had had a seizure in the bathroom shower and had broken his leg, bone was visable. So I race over, then follow him in to ER by ambulance. He gets checked out and they stay he has to stay and they will do surgery in the morning. So the take them up to his room by elevator. I was likley calling who I had to tell he was being admitted, so I didn't see which way they went. I knew the floor number and found a close by elevatorand got in. I opened the door, and a nurse or aid asks how did i get up their in that elevator. You have to have a khey to open the elevator from that floor and I had no keyand no one was with me. So how did I get in there and was able to go to the second or third floor.with out an empoyee key? they were pretty addiment that You had to us a key to get up to that floor.Theywere really surprised and told me where my elevator was. Got to his room, and he has another seizure so he was helped and settled in bed.

So a nice ghostly worker used her key to let me in, even though I had seen none else there

Things that make you go hmmm.

I had never heard of this until I worked on a Navajo reservation. Interesting.

I work in LTC and an older nurse says to tie a knot in the sheet to keep the resident from passing on your shift. Anyone else heard this before?
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