What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

What Members Are Saying (AI-Generated Summary)

Members are sharing personal experiences and stories related to ghosts, spirits, and paranormal occurrences in healthcare settings. Some members discuss encounters with deceased loved ones or unexplained phenomena, while others share their interest in ghost stories and movies like "Doctor Sleep" and "The Shining." There is a mix of skepticism, curiosity, and belief in the supernatural among the forum participants.

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...

My friend's brother was in a bad car accident in the middle of the night, and was brought to the hospital I work at. My friend came to the hospital, leaving her husband and two small children at home. She didn't say anything to her children about what had happened, and didn't wake them up either, as she thought it would be best to wait.Anyway, despite the efforts from the medical team, her brother did not survive the trauma and died a few hours later. When my friend got home from the hospital, exhausted from her night and in shock from what happened, she was greeted by her very sleepy 6yr old daughter, who heard her keys in the front door. She was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and said "mommy where is uncle Timmy?", my friend, not expecting this from her daughter, only answered "what sweetie?", her daughter said " uncle Timmy was in my room and told me to always where my seat belt, and that he loves me, but mommy where did he go? is he having breakfast with us?" My friend was in such disbelief she didn't know how to respond and just told her daughter that uncle Timmy had to go. Its amazing what messages spirits can leave behind and how they can still get through to us after they have passed.

This is quite amazing...and amazingly beautiful..

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

A past friend of mine told me this story, not really ghostly, but still weird...

My friend was a twin & studying nursing with me. Her other twin had gone away to Sydney for work or study or something.

My friend was studying at home one night, when she felt an awful, searing pain in her side. This went on and on, so her mum took her to the hospital. Tests, scans were done but nothing showed up, & eventually the pain subsided. The Dr said it may be a grumbling appendix, & to return if the pain got worse.

Anyway, my friend got a phone call later from an acquaintance in Sydney who knew her family. She told my friend that they were at the hospital with her sister - who had been admitted with appendicitis which had to be removed!

My friend felt twin sympathy pains and yet she was thousands of kilometers away. She found out later that the time her sister was having her appendix removed, was the time she had the most awful pain!

Weird or what?

Specializes in Ortho/neuro,medical-surgical.
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?

A helpful ghost? I need/want one!!

I work in both hospitals and care homes and have come across many strange things.

One Boxing Day morning a resident died in a care home where I was later doing the late shift. This was a modern purpose-built home with long, bright corridors.

The lady died peacefully in her room at the far end of an upstairs corridor. She had liked all the various lights in her room and little bathroom left on at bedtime, and the bedroom and bathroom doors and windows left open, with the corridor lights outside her room on too. The staff would pop in after she fell asleep and turn out the lights and close the doors.

Because she'd died, the room was left undisturbed all day. I saw these lights and doors left like that on my shift, right up until I left at 8pm or so. When the night staff arrived, one eventually decided to close the room up and put out the lights.

She did all this and strolled back to the nurses' station. When she reached it, the corridor lights were all on again and the late resident's bedroom door was open.

She had hysterics and was only prevented from walking out forever by some strong persuasion by the staff nurse!

The staff nurse went down to the room to investigate and found that the windows and bathroom door were open, and all the lights were on as usual. She chose not to disclose that to the hysterical girl that night!

In the same care home, I personally saw something very creepy.

A lady was dying in her room, with her two middle-aged daughters either side of her. As I walked past the room, I glanced in through the oen door and noticed that one of the daughters seemed to be beckoning me.

I went in and asked what I could do for them. However, the daughter had not been beckoning. She said she had actually been waving away an enormous black fly which was buzzing around her mother's face.

She and her sister both flapped their hands around a bit as we spoke. I suggested that we open the window and half-close the curtains so that it would fly out.

'Oh no!' said one, 'Mother doesn't want us to! She says it's her pet!'

I looked at the mother's face and saw that she was smiling, not at us but straight ahead.

Another thing I noticed was that THERE WAS NO FLY. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see or hear it, even though the women insisted that it was circling their mother's face as we spoke and continued flapping at it.

I looked again at their faces - the smiling, dying mother, the two solicitous daughters - and decided to back out of the room, with an assurance that I'd be back if they needed me.

How could they all see a fly that wasn't there?

I've since read that in some cultures, it is believed that the devil sends a fly to collect the souls that he has won on earth.

I'm not a superstitious person, and those three women were regular English ladies, but something strange was going on.

Specializes in ICU.

re: the fly, not spooky but vile... I went to give oral care on an intubated patient and a large black fly crawled slowly out :barf01:

Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
re: the fly, not spooky but vile... I went to give oral care on an intubated patient and a large black fly crawled slowly out :barf01:
Ewwwww. yuck!!!!

Ok I've been working on this thread for days and am on page 74. I will share my own nurse ghost story now, have some non nursing ghost stories too which I will share later.

I work the 3-11 shift and I was giving a resident his meds and gtube feeding. I had the gtube in one had the cup in the other (bolus feeding) and I felt someing poking me in the back from the other side of the curtain. I just figured it was the roomates bedside table. When I had a free hand I reached around to push the table away and as I put my hand back there the sensation stopped and there was nothing on the other side of the curtain except for the (immobile) roomate sleeping. BTW this happened before I started reading this thread.

Two nights ago I was in the hallway and felt a hand on my back. We have many touchy feely residents (dementia unit) and I put my hand back to touch the persons hand while I turned around and there wasn't anyone there.

Both times I didn't get scared it was like a former resident was just saying hi to me. I've only been there a few months and nobody has passed while I've been there.

I have better non nursing ghost stories that I'll come back and tell later. Time for bed.... Can someone walk with me? I'm a little freaked out everyone else is in bed. :sofahider

When I was doing agency work in an old hospital in the next city, I saw a ghost right in front of me.

I was going off-duty one afternoon and to leave the ward I had to walk down a corridor. There were stacking chairs piled up all along one wall. As I entered the corridor I noticed a woman walking ten feet or so in front of me, which was puzzling as I hadn't seen anyone else leaving at the same time.

She was wearing a long pale coat with the hood up, which I also thought odd: why put your hood up indoors?

In the second or two that I thought all this, a high stack of chairs started rattling or vibrating. As the woman passed them the top two FLEW off and fell onto her head!

I started to call 'Watch out!', but as I opened my mouth the chairs landed on her and she vanished. The chairs hit the floor with a clatter.

I stood for a moment, absolutely stunned, then picked up the chairs and re-stacked them. I did briefly consider going back to the ward to tell the staff but thought they'd think me a nutter, and besides, I wanted to be home after a busy shift!

Still not done reading, but decided to post another story... This isn't a ghost story, but more of a mothery intuition story similar to one I just read...

Three year ago my son was in the PICU. he was in a terrible accident and we didn't know if he would make it. It was the night the accident had happened and my husband stayed at the hospital with our older son and I went home to see our younger son who I hadn't seen since before the accident that morning (he was with friends).

I had gone to bed and had finally fallen to sleep when I woke up out of a bad dream. I saw my son's hospital room and there were nurses and doctors rushing around his bed, something was very wrong. I woke and stared at the phone waiting for my hubby to call. He didn't and I looked at the clock and laid my head back down and fell immediately to sleep.

Two minutes later my hubby called and told me I had to get back to the hospital because our son just got rushed back into surgery because the bleeding had started back up.

When I got to the hospital we were talking and I told him about the dream and what time it was. What I had dreamed was exactly what was happening at that time.

Oh and my son recovered and is fine.

oh, the little black girl with the ribbon would've grown up to be a nurse

Catholic hospitals.........shadows of "penguins"...everywhere....especially all at one time....many have noticed......and then........they set off all the IV pumps to beeping.........just to make sure us civilian women (and men.....agast!)......are paying proper attention!!!!!!!

Hey ladies any new halloween cost stories. I love reading what the nurses posted the previous year.

Thanks you

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