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...

[brigaily2000]

yes. Please do so. LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS WHOLE THREAD.

[Babs0512]

Okay, so in September 2002 - my mother who had Parkinson's and parkinson's dementia was coming home from BINGO-and knowing my stubborn mother, she wasn't holding the stair rails on our concrete steps. She apparently fell backwards, struck her head and when we found her she had no heartbeat and only agonal respiration's. My husband (EMT) and me (ER at the time) did CPR until EMS arrived. By then she had a pulse. Brought her to the ER, and long story short she had a basilar skull fx, a subdural bleed, developed a contra-coup bleed the next day. She died again, three days later. When we found her she was face down with her head and shoulders on the concrete landing, and her legs on the stairs - this will be important in another post.

Anyway, my uncle and his wife were staying in my mothers room, and my brother and his wife were staying in our back bedroom, they shared a wall. I woke up the next morning and the four of them were sitting at the dining room table talking. As I walked by to get my coffee, I heard my uncle say to my brother, "what were you doing last night, you kept knocking on the wall" my sister-in-law said "We thought that was you guys, kept us up most of the night!" I came in with my coffee and said "Sorry, should have warned you, that must have been our ghost, Mary, she does that when people are upset or grieving, I think it's her way of letting us know she understands." The four of them looked at me like I was nuts, I said "yes, this house is haunted, but the good news is that if you ask her to stop, she will." Why she picked on guests confused me.

The next morning both couple were talking about hearing the knocks again, my brother and his wife didn't believe my story, but apparently my uncle did, he said "after a few knocks, I said Mary, please stop so we can get some sleep, and I'll be darned, the knocks stopped." This made a believer out of my brother, because he and his wife had chalked it up to an old house, but they agreed, the knocks did stop - unlike the previous night.

Same thing happened when our son passed away in 2004 - but I let Mary knock, for some reason I felt like she understood our pain, and I found it oddly comforting.

After our son passed away, my husband and I decided we needed a hobby to keep us busy. So we started picking up old furniture and light fixtures at garage sales. He would repair the furniture and sand it. I would stain it or tole paint flowers on the piece and sell it on E-bay.

One day I was down in the basement painting, my husband was in the garage sanding. There was no one else around. As I was concentrating on my rose, I felt such a light "tug" on my shirt - that I thought it was just my clothes settling on my body. So I ignored it. About a minute later, the tug was sharp and unmistakably a tug. I swung around and there was nothing there. My hair was standing up, and I ran upstairs and out of the basement into the garage, I told my husband what had happened, he said "so, you gonna let her run you out of your own home?" I collected my courage, went back to the basement and in my sternest voice I said "I don't mind sharing my house with you, MY HOUSE, you are dead. I draw the line at being touched in any way. NEVER do that to anyone in this house again!" It never happened again.

More tomorrow...

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

Babs is your house very old?

[Babs0512]

110 year old

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

110 year old

Wow! I've always wanted to live in a really old house & research the hx the people who once lived there. Have u done much research into it's background?

[Babs0512]

Myself, no - just what was on our abstract, there were no Mary's listed. But that's part of the continuing saga of my old house...

[Babs0512]

Okay, I'll continue...This happens quite frequently, always when I'm rushed. I'll go to get my keys out of my purse, because I distinctly remember putting them in there when I got home the night before, I'll empty out the purse, and no keys are in there. Then I have to start looking, so I'll start in the dining room or my office, and my husband usually comes in around this time and says - "what are you looking for?" "My keys, I'm going to be late for work!" He'll say "Did you check your purse?" I'll look at him with a "duh" expression and say "I emptied the dam purse, there not in there!" So, he'll go over to my purse, reach in and pull out my keys - and I'll say "I swear they weren't in there a few minutes ago!" Now, granted, this could happen to any of us - from time to time, but this sort of this happens on a fairly regular basis around here, I've learned that if I tell "Mary" to put the keys back, it won't happen. So, I have to go through the motions of looking everywhere and let my husband find the keys, this is the only way it works. I guess this is her way of playing a "practical joke" on me - and she gets lot's of pleasure from this - as it's always MY keys!

One day, back in 2005 or so, I walked into the living room (broad daylight) and saw this man walking through the wall and across the living room - he disappeared when he got to my husbands recliner. I didn't see a face, but he was wearing jeans, suspenders and a striped shirt - he was a very thin man. He came through a part of the wall that use to have a door way at one time in the past. Only saw him once, and I never found out who he was.

I worked in the ER when I bought this house, and one of my co workers was the coroner. I said to her one day "I think my house is haunted!" This was back at the beginning after moving in. She said "Is that the house with that beautiful wood staircase when you walk in?" I said "yes". Now, she had been the coroner for 10 years - she replied "I've done three body removals from that house in the past 10 years." I said "your telling me this AFTER I signed on the dotted line! Just tell me, were they tragic body removals?" she replied "No, all three were elderly, natural causes." that made me feel better. Yes, over the years I figured out who all three were - but in an old home, there were probably many more over the years. One body was found in our bedroom, another which was my mothers room and now my husbands office, and another in the living room. Yes, I've figured out who they were - my bedroom was "Mary", the office was "Marys" mother in law, and the living room was "Mary's husband". I'll get to how I know this.

In 2005 we also refinanced the house to get the money for some much needed improvements. One of the things we decided to do is to turn the tiny upstairs bath into a huge luxury bath by taking a bedroom away and expanding the bathroom into the bedroom - so what use to be a 5 bedroom house, is now a four bedroom house. During this time (we also did the kitchen and carpeted the upstairs) activity increased. The contractors doing the work were often heard complaining of "where did my drill go, I left it here?" or "Where is the grout, it was here when I left!" So, Mary was playing her practical jokes on the crew as well.

After the bathroom was completed, it was beautiful - I have two crystal chandeliers in the bathroom, one over the two person soaker tub (which takes up the entire original bath) and the other on the side where the toilet/sink and shower are. My hubby and I decided to christen the tub one night. We lit candles, had our glasses of wine, and filled the tub with nice hot water. As we were soaking and relaxing, I distinctly heard someone come up the front stairs, then started walking down the hall, jiggled the door handle to the bath, then continued down the hall and went down the back stairs. My husband, who hardly ever experiences anything didn't say a word. So I said "Please tell me you heard all that!" he said "Yeah, I did." He got out of the tub, put on his bathrobe and went looking around the house. The house was locked up tight, we had no animals at the time, and he came back to the bath and got in - said "I guess it was the ghost!" When the kitchen was completed, we came down one morning and every cabinet door was open, every drawer. That's when I said out loud, "Okay Mary, we changed the house, we improved it's value, so no more of this nonsense." She didn't do it again.

Last installment, will tell you how I found out her name was Mary, and will finalize my stories...

[NurseDuCoeur]

We had a very dear patient that was on the unit for quite a while. Although we were a Tele floor, this patient was somewhat of a VIP in the medical community and the family got along with the nurses so well that the decision was made to keep them inpatient hospice on our floor. They lingered for quite a while kussmaul breathing, no urinary output, spO2 in the 70-80s on 100% NRB (that is if the pleth could sense anything at all), the whole nine. The end of our shift ended like any other and there was absolutely no change wahtsoever in the patient's status. I work nights so when our shift came back on one night, we were surprised to see that the patient had finally passed away. It was a refreshingly slow night so even though the room had already been cleaned and ready for the next patient, we never had to admit anyone to that particular room. It was a little past 2 or 3 AM and we were all talking about the patient and sharing stories because by that time, all 5 of us had been assigned to them at one time or another. That's when the call bell started going off and the room number on the screen said that room. We all just stopped to look at each other for a minute before our PCT answers the call on speaker and says, "Can I help you?" Static. She looks at me wide-eyed and said, "WHOA! You have to go down there with me!" Reluctantly we took a stroll down the hall and initially were surprised to see the door closed shut because usually we leave the empty rooms open. She opens the door and steps away quickly as if something is going to jump out and bite her. All we see is an empty room and the call bell remote sitting innocently on top of the neatly folded sheets. The only thing that seemed out of place was that someone had left the crack in the window open. The next morning, one of the family members gave us a plant as a thank you and the charge nurse during the day had every intention to go transplant it into our meditation garden that we have in our atrium on the first floor. I don't really know plants or flowers nor do I pretend to but one of the other nurses mentioned that we needed to place it where it got plenty of sunlight, but that never happened. Still. So we've actually been waiting for the plant to wither up and dry out, but that has also never happened. It's been several years now and we're still waiting.

[ShifraPuah]

I LOVE all these stories! Keep them coming!

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

I have some stories my Mum told me years ago, though not nursing stories. I just remembered them reading these again (I love ghost stories!)

My Mum had gone to bed one night - she is an early riser so goes to bed early. Well she always used to say that she had this Chinese lady whom she would see when she just woke up for no particular reason (ie: didn't need the loo or anything), and she'd just sit quietly on the end of the bed. My Mum just knew this lady would be there & she'd wake up when she appeared. The apparition was always wearing a traditional Chinese, beautifully embroidered gown, a spike with silvery decorations in her black hair, all piled up on top of her head. My Mum would say hi, then the lady would just fade away. My Mum said she used to see her all the time. She never knew any Chinese people or had encountered any really up until that time. My Dad never saw this lady.

Another story she told me was truly terrifying. My Mum was restless, semi-sleeping one night and my Dad was asleep beside her. Well, Mum woke up suddenly and she looked down the bed....and there crawling UP the bed was a severed, bloody, black hand!! My Mum was adamant she was NOT dreaming. She tried to scream & wake up my Dad next to her, but she was paralysed with fear. This hand kept crawling up the bed, slowly towards her. My Mum said she has never felt such terror in her life. She was sweating like mad, her heart was hammering and she was desperate to move, but couldn't and all the time this hand just kept crawling up the bed, slowly getting closer to her. She told me she could FEEL it's fingrers digging into her as it gripped the bed clothes to get up the bed. She thinks she must have passed out, because the next day there as no evidence of a bloody hand being there and my Dad heard nothing.

To this day, my Mum still believes that hand was real, and nothing can convince her otherwise.

My Mum always used to see a black apparition either in the hall way as well, or in the kitchen, which would vanish and no-one else would ever see it.

I have some other stories of her astral projection encounters but it's late and I must have my cup of tea, then bed :)

[MaryAnn_RN]

Ok, so it's All Hallows Eve and I'm working the night shift and so far so good, nothing seen so far :sofahider

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

Ok, so it's All Hallows Eve and I'm working the night shift and so far so good, nothing seen so far :sofahider

Ha ha! Did anything end up happening? I scared myself last night re-reading some of these again!