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...

[Merlyn]

Anything new happen lately?

Move into a house. The women had lived here about 30 years. She died and the house became available. From very first night I thought I heard my wife talking to me. I answer her and she mumbled something back. The only trouble was my wife was fast asleep in her bed. The voice that I answered came from the kitchen. This thing goes on every 3-5 days. I will hear a female voice mumbling something and I answer it. One time I heard the voice, my wife was staying over her mother's house some 45 miles away. My wife found that if she calls out the woman's name and tells her to stop it, there is silence for another 3-4 nights. A few nights ago we replaced the refrigerator with a new one. That night I heard dishes crashing to the floor in the kitchen. I went in to see what was wrong with my wife this time. Nothing was wrong with her. She was again sleeping in her bedroom. But our dog was up staring into the kitchen. Having lived in a haunted house before it's not scary just an annoyance. You don't have to be afraid of ghosts, it's the living you have to watch out for.

[PennyMT, LPN]

Hello everyone,

I am not a nurse.. yet. I am still a nursing student, so obviously I haven't had anything nurse-related happen to me yet. But I hope it's okay that I post some non-nursing experiences I have had. I am now 28, and nothing has happened to me since I was a kid. When I was around 8 or 9 I had something extreme happen to me. This might sound very odd, I can't promise that I wasn't imagining anything, but I definitely am not making any of this up. Anyway, there used to be a priest who used to come to our house once a week and have mass, neighbors would come and have mass with my family. I was brought up catholic, but as I grew older I am not really sure what I believe, sorry not trying to offend anyone of course. My parents never really explained to me why they had mass at our house every week, nor did I ever ask. Well, this priest was also the same priest who had baptised me, and used to tell me stories when I was very young. Stories that I was definitely too young to hear or even understand. Anyways, once he had given me a doll... one of them pink panther life-size dolls, well at least it was my size.. I was only 8. One night as I was getting ready to fall asleep (wasn't asleep yet), I glanced over and seen it floated (yes floating) to the side of my bed. It was dark, so it was hard to see that clear, but I seen it. My sister was in the bed on the other side of the room when she heard me screaming, she ran to the light and turned it on. I had explained to her what I seen, and we both ran and slept in our mothers bed that night... but eventually went back to sleeping in our room. Again, not sure if I was just a kid and my imagination ran wild, but I did see it, not sure what it meant, or why it happened.

Then there was another time, around 12. I was riding my bike outside and a van came flying down the road, almost hitting me until I heard a woman scream my name... after the van left... I looked around, but there was no one there. Not even my mom seen it happen. I still to this day have asked everyone on the block (small block) and no one knows. It was just one of them moments I guess an angel was looking over me... if they hadn't have screamed... I am sure I wouldn't be here today.. I will never forget that voice. Over 15 years later and I still remember the voice like it happened yesterday. Hope you enjoyed my stories. I did have a few more, but there weren't as shocking as these ones. I am a believer of ghosts, I have to be, I have had too many things happen to me that I still can't explain. People may think I am nuts, but oh well... I am a middle child. I have a younger brother and an older sister... my brother never seen anything, and my sister has seen and heard many things. My mom never seen anything (but she jokes and says that her eyes are so bad that she wouldn't know a ghost if she seen one lol), and my dad has seen many things, since he was a child. I guess some people are open to that world and some aren't. Not sure, but it does make you think. I love this thread! Keep em' coming people :)

[HazelLPN, LPN]

The hospital were I worked for many years had an old wing that was no longer used for patients. There were offices and storage rooms and radiology had a clinic on the first floor, but there had not been inpatients there in years. The old hospital was easily accessed by a short corridor to the main hospital. I am a rational woman, but I always felt that the 5th floor of the old hospital was particularly dark and creepy. It was here where the education department stored their extra equipment for discharge teaching...annie dolls and the like. One evening shift I mentioned to a security guard that I thought the old hospital was creepy and he told me that he had seen a child run around the 5th floor with the old fashioned pajamas...the kind with the rear end that had a flap that buttoned up. The child laughed and ran down a dark corridor. The guard followed the corridor and found an empty room that housekeeping used to store cribs. There were plenty of cribs but no child wearing old fashioned pjs. He checking with the closest nursing unit (hem/onc) and no child was wearing old fashioned pjs. This guy wasn't one to make up stories. Perhaps our minds get the better of us in these situations, or perhaps some people are more sensitive to such things than others. I've never seen a ghost myself, but then again, I avoided the old 5th floor whenever possible. Ghost or no ghost, it was a creepy place. That wing was torn down about fifteen years ago and the education department moved to a brand new building ....very bright with modern sleek lines.....not at all a kind of place where one would expect to encounter a ghost.

[PennyMT, LPN]

Wow, I would have avoided the 5th floor as well . Great story! I haven't seen anything in a long time, and that's what makes me wonder... are children more open to seeing these type of things... or do children just have a big imagination and make these things up in there head. I can't really tell.. but when I seen the life-size doll come to the side of my bed... I don't think I was imagining that, but again.. you never know. I wish I did. Or maybe it's good I don't! lol

[denise04]

Do any of you see a soul leave a body

[jimmymoth1]

I work on a neurology unit in london. we had a patient with us called kevin ellerby (fake name) for about 1 year with CJD. during this time he had various problems which needed a lot specimens with lables we'd print out or them.

well for some reason we all had difficulty printing most of his lables for him, the system would crash or, more oftern, the printer would jam up.

unfortunatly for keven he died after 11 months with us, which was a sad time since we'd really got to know the family and kevin himself. but after a year of kevin passing we started getting a different lable being printed off, for no reason, at 4am every day. we cant stop it, 3 different printers and various people out to sort the system out...all have failed. its still happeneing to this day 2 years after mr ellerby passed.

[ms-feelgood]

I've been working in a nursing home for the elderly for a good while now, and seen quite a few deaths... not a single ghost, though, but I've witnessed something very odd happening in there. Cue lengthy explanation! The building has six floors, and the actual wards are on floors 2, 3, 4 and 5. The ground floor - or 1 - has the kitchen, recreation rooms, auditorium, the secretary's office and such. The 6th floor only has some storage space, and the smoking terrace for nurses. Our call system shows the calls for the entire building, and the call lights are numbered by floor and room, for example 211 - room 11 on floor 2. There are no patient rooms, no call buttons, nothing, on the sixth floor, yet on more than one occassion I've seen the number 666 flash on the call screen for a few times, then turn off by itself. I'm not the only one who's seen this... the first time it happened, I asked a fellow nurse if I just really saw what I saw. She confirmed, said it happens every now and then and no one knows why. I don't usually believe in ghosts and such, and I'm not even a religious person, but it really makes my skin crawl for some reason.

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

I've been working in a nursing home for the elderly for a good while now, and seen quite a few deaths... not a single ghost, though, but I've witnessed something very odd happening in there. Cue lengthy explanation! The building has six floors, and the actual wards are on floors 2, 3, 4 and 5. The ground floor - or 1 - has the kitchen, recreation rooms, auditorium, the secretary's office and such. The 6th floor only has some storage space, and the smoking terrace for nurses. Our call system shows the calls for the entire building, and the call lights are numbered by floor and room, for example 211 - room 11 on floor 2. There are no patient rooms, no call buttons, nothing, on the sixth floor, yet on more than one occassion I've seen the number 666 flash on the call screen for a few times, then turn off by itself. I'm not the only one who's seen this... the first time it happened, I asked a fellow nurse if I just really saw what I saw. She confirmed, said it happens every now and then and no one knows why. I don't usually believe in ghosts and such, and I'm not even a religious person, but it really makes my skin crawl for some reason.

That is creepy!

[JessicaMSW]

I'm not a nurse, but I worked my way through school as a nurses' aide. I'm now a clinical social worker.

A young woman I know got pregnant, and the father of the baby denied paternity. After the baby was born, she started dating a young man who adored her son, and they were making plans to marry, when he was killed in a wreck on his way to work. The baby was just learning to walk, with all the unsteadiness that implies...and on several occasions, an accident was just barely avoided. She started saying that it was her fiance, protecting her son. The most spectacular rescue was one day when she was ironing. She was hanging the garment up, and her son grabbed the cord of the iron, jerking it off the ironing board. Instead of falling directly on him, the iron fell to one side, as if someone had pushed it away from the baby. Eventually, she met another young man, who adored her son, and they were married...and the mysterious close calls stopped. She says that her former fiance knew that she now had someone to look out for her and her son, so he stopped coming around.

[JessicaMSW]

My sister's cat, who was not a cuddly cat, would come into the bedroom and lie on her chest. She'd wake up, realize she felt awful, and take her blood sugar. Every time it was getting dangerously low. Once her meds were regulated, and she stopped going low, the cat stopped lying on her chest. She believes he was trying to wake her up, and credits him with saving her life.

She visited a hotel that is supposed to be haunted, and they had a resident cat. The owners told her that the cat would rub up against invisible ankles, so they assumed that the cat could see the ghosts, and the ghosts were nice people or the cat wouldn't like them so. After a good long life, the cat himself died, and on her next visit the owners told her that they could feel an invisible cat rubbing up against them from time to time, and other guests had seen him, and recognized him from his pictures.

But the best ghost I ever heard of haunted the house a friend lived in. One night she and her husband were just exceptionally tired (I don't remember why, maybe it was a new baby) and they debated about doing the dishes, but decided they'd go to bed and do them the next day. When she came down to the kitchen the next day, all the dishes were done. She swears that it is not at all likely that her husband would have gotten up in the middle of the night and done them, even if he didn't swear he'd done no such thing. Unfortunately, the ghost has not repeated the favor. :)

[DedHedRN]

I was staying late at a LTC center and doing some charting. Everyone was in bed. All of a sudden, me and the CNAs could hear someone playing the piano very loudly down in the day room. We were wondering who could be up, and would be playing the piano at that time of night since very few of our residents would play...even during the day. The CNAs looked at me and said "everyone should be in bed". They did not want to go look. The hair was standing up on my arms, but I figured I was being silly. I had to check out the situation. The music was heard again so I started walking down the hall to the dayroom. One of the aides decided she didn't want me going alone and walked with me. I had goosebumps when we neared the room and I looked at her and said "were not going to find anyone in there are we?" She didn't think so either. Well there wasn't anyone in there...the piano was shut and when I went near the piano I was overwhelmed by a strong smell of perfume.

[RN2BKS]

I was staying late at a LTC center and doing some charting. Everyone was in bed. All of a sudden, me and the CNAs could hear someone playing the piano very loudly down in the day room. We were wondering who could be up, and would be playing the piano at that time of night since very few of our residents would play...even during the day. The CNAs looked at me and said "everyone should be in bed". They did not want to go look. The hair was standing up on my arms, but I figured I was being silly. I had to check out the situation. The music was heard again so I started walking down the hall to the dayroom. One of the aides decided she didn't want me going alone and walked with me. I had goosebumps when we neared the room and I looked at her and said "were not going to find anyone in there are we?" She didn't think so either. Well there wasn't anyone in there...the piano was shut and when I went near the piano I was overwhelmed by a strong smell of perfume.

Omg!!! Scary!!! I got goose bumps!!