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...

i would have screamed. speaking of ghost stories in the nursing home where i used to work, i was sitting behind the desk with another nurse finishing up last min charting and there were a couple of CENA's on the other side standing in front of the desk. Well over to the side of the desk there was the med card with a blood pressure cuff on it. well anyway it was late and a couple of the girls were talking when all of a sudden the nurse next to me said did you see that, i said see what she said that the blood pressure cuff did a 180 really fast. there was noone standing there and the funny thing is i heard something but i didn't see it happen. i asked her if she was sure and she said yes it flipped around in a circle really fast. now i don't know what to make of that one, that was really weird.

Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..

Gitano,

I loved your post. It gave me a good laugh. Have you been with any sighing bodies yet?:D

I enjoy reading these. But, I must say, as I was sitting here reading these... my dog woke up and started looking toward the kitchen barking and growling. It is dark and everyone is asleep. I am freaking myself out lol

Specializes in ER, PACU.
admittedly, this might not be consider a ghost story however, it happen to me many moons ago at the beginning of my career to be exact. i have just gotten hired to one of the best teaching hospitals in madrid, spain. when on my first week of working the night shift one of my patients died, after following the protocol of body i.d. etc. i was told that i had to take the body to the morgue by myself. as i got to the elevator i noticed that this was the old style elevator,yes ..the ones you had to pull like a metal gate to open, and then manually guide the elevator to each floor, yup a pain in the a$$ because 9 out of ten you always went to high or to low between the floors:uhoh3: furthermore, there i am in the elevator with the body and there's a blackout so i'm stuck in the elevator, with a small back-up light that allows me to pull the emergency level. when from the corner of my lt. eye i noticed the body sat up:eek:!!! a few minutes later i heard a voice yelling out "we have the engineer with us his coming to help you out" when they open the door they began to lol because i wet my pants in the process:( then i heard "call housekeeping" so there you have my almost ghost story... as you well know most dead bodies will sit or move because of the gases... needless to say i learned fast after that.

:eek: i would have peed my pants and had a heart attack!!!! i have never seen a dead body move ever!!!!

I'm not in the medical field at all, but I love reading all these stories.

I can't believe that the patients are not freaked out that some child or nurse or random patient came into their rooms in the middle of the night. If it was a ghost nurse doing check-up, I guess they could mistake the ghost for regular nurse. But if this ghost is just standing still, starring at you or rocking back and forth... duddeee.... I would have screamed bloody murder.

Anyway.. love the stories here. Keep them coming :D

I'm not in the medical field at all, but I love reading all these stories.

I can't believe that the patients are not freaked out that some child or nurse or random patient came into their rooms in the middle of the night. If it was a ghost nurse doing check-up, I guess they could mistake the ghost for regular nurse. But if this ghost is just standing still, starring at you or rocking back and forth... duddeee.... I would have screamed bloody murder.

Anyway.. love the stories here. Keep them coming :D

You would think so, but one of the scariest things that I ever experienced actually caused me to squeeze my eyes shut and I fell asleep as I mentally willed it to go away.

Another time, a pt and I both shared a weird occurrence wherein we both sorta just had big eyes and didn't really verbalize or acknowledge what happened.

I think I shared both these experiences (among others) on this thread.

This is a fascinating thread, to be sure!

Specializes in none.

i was working the 11-7 shift as a charge nurse in a nursing home. there was a patient named "sam". sam had come to the home after a mugger had attacked him with a tire iron. the doctors had saved his life by removing the left side of his skull and part of his brain. sam's head looked like a basketball that was deflated on one side. despite not really being able to take care of himself, he could read, watch tv, and engage in his favorite pastime, watching the young female nurses and aides. he wouldn't do anything but put his arm around a girl's shoulder to say 'thank you' when she picked up his dinner tray. that was it. so sam became something of the nursing home mascot. but as it happens in this business, sam died of a blood infection six months after i started there.

the night of his death, we were gathered around the desk for the report from sandy, the 3-11 nurse, as she gave her report to me and three nurse's aides. when sandy came to sam's name, she said "sam died at about 3:30 this after...". suddenly a call light came on. everyone stared at the light board. the call was coming from room 30. that room had been locked ever since the relatives had taken his belongings away. the call was coming from sam's empty, locked room.

we all went down the hall to see what this was about. we thought that another patient had probably gotten into the room and put on the call bell. sam's room was open, lights were on, call bell was pushed in ( old fashioned call light. shape like a bell, you had to push the button in the center to call and turn it off by twisting the edge of the bell). only one problem, no patient was up, the door was not forced, it was unlocked, all the staff were at the desk, the only one that had the key was the charge nurse and the door was locked when i made rounds not more then ten minutes before.

i mumbled something about loose wire. i twisted the call bell off, turned the room lights off, locked the door and went with the rest of the staff back to the nurse's station. sandy started the report again. she didn't get more than 3 minutes into the report, when sam's call light came on again. we went down to find the room opened, lights on and call bell on, all patients in bed. i turned the call bell off, the lights off, and locked the room up again. back to the desk. report started again. the light came on again. by this time it was more nuisance than scary. so we decided to leave it on, continue report so that the other shift could leave.

after report, i went down to the room, turned off the call bell, replaced the old cord with a new call bell cord, turned off the room lights, and locked the door again. the bell stayed off but the signal on the board stayed on. we went down the longest hall- sam's hall- to start our work. as we passed sam's room the door was open but the lights were off. the nurses aides felt a cold breeze up their skirts( remember sam liked the ladies.) at that i went into the room to check if someone had opened a window. no window was open and no air conditioner was on in the room. i closed the door and locked the door again. and we continued. after we finished down that hall, we went past sam's room again. the door was still closed and locked. by the time we finished the 1st round it was 2 am. back at the desk, the call light in sam's room was off. we forgot about sam.

we drank our, by now, cold coffee. i did my paper work and the aides exchanged small talk. at 3 am, we started the second round down the long hall again. this time sam's door was open and the females felt an even colder breeze. i went into the room. it was like a vacuum as if the air had been sucked out. i opened the windows but no air could dispel the vacuum. i had had enough. i yelled, "sam you're dead! you spent enough time in this place. get out of here!" i closed the windows, locked the door again, and joined the aides for rounds. i didn't go in that room until around 6:00 am. all four of us went for one last look. no vacuum, no breeze, sun shining through the window. nothing to prove anything happened that morning. we didn't want to tell the 7-3 shift and risk the whole day looking at ink blots, so we kept the occurrences to ourselves but this was only the beginning. we were not prepared for what was going to happen next.

the following night, i get a call at home from sandy. she asked me if anything happened on 11-7 shift. i said "why?" sandy stated this tale.

"well when we were picking up the dinner trays we were one tray over. we passed out 26 trays and we picked up 27 trays."

"somebody miscounted." i said.

"that may have happened. only the 27th tray was outside sam's room just as he had left it when he was alive...exactly as he left it."

"somebody is pulling a prank on you, sandy", i said.

"i don't think so because when i stood up from taking the tray, i felt an arm around my shoulder just like sam had put it. i was the only one down that hall."

i then told her what had happened the previous morning. she said, "well, it looks like we have ghost to add to the census."

that wasn't the end of the story. a week later another patient was admitted to room 30. a retired university professor. one night her light came on. she had seen a man staring at her from outside her window. when i asked her what the man looked like, she said that he was not normal looking. the left side of his head was deflated like an old volleyball (she used to play volleyball a lot in her younger days). i told her that i would go around the building and see if i could see him. the police were called to look for a potential prowler. they found no one and no footprints outside the window; no grass disturbed. but i knew who it was. when i told the nurse's aides, they knew who it was. sam was back! over the years every female patient that was in that room saw sam staring at them through the window. no male patient would ever see him. for you see, sam liked the girls.

i left the nursing home some years later so don't know how long sam stuck around. but these events were experienced and/or confirmed by various employees and patients. in my career working in nursing homes, reports like this are relatively common. i don't know what to make of this, except that we just don't know what happens after death and maybe some people just want to linger where they felt most comfortable. sam did.

Merlyn

Really enjoyed your story about Sam :)

We have automatic toilets in the rooms. A new nurse and I were turning a patient who had been calling out for their late spouse and praying. They had a radio playing and we we turning them. The radio went to white noise and we looked at each other and thought it was odd but kept going. The patient started to recite the Lords Prayer and out of habit I whispered it along with them. We lowered the bed and walked out. We were discussing the care outside the room and the toilet flushed. The cleaning girl went in and the patient asked her "Can you please ask that man to leave?" When we asked which man the patient replied "The one standing next to you" and that damn radio went off again.

Chills up my spine every time.

Specializes in none.
Merlyn

Really enjoyed your story about Sam :)

Thank you.

I"M new here and started at 1 and by the 60th thread i came to the newest ones so i could comment.It also helps to post in between changing my pants due to freakin out at the slightest noise and i don't scare that easy!!!!!!! KEEP POSTING, THIS SITE IS ADDICTIVE AND A FOR SURE WAY TO SLEEP WITH THE LIGHTS ON!!!!!!!!!!!! IF YOU CAN!!!!!

Anything new happen lately?

:nurse:

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