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...

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.

Specializes in acute & emergency.

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. :confused:

Specializes in Gerontology.
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. :confused:
That is creepy!

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.

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. :)

Specializes in Medical Surgical.

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.

Specializes in Long Term Care,Cardiac Care,Pediatric..
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!!

When I was in college in nursing school I took a course called death and dying. I had to go to a autopsy and I had to go to a funeral home embalming. I promise you if you did not die in the hospital you are dead in the autopsy after they get done. OR YOU are dead for real after the embalming. So no one is buried alive by the time they get done with you!

My first hospital had a room in the "back," which was the room we often put dying patients in, as it was quiet and far from the nursing station noise.

Of course we never told patients who were NOT dying this fact when they were placed in this room!

I can't tell you how many times we had AOx3 patients in that room calling the nursing station at 3am to report their room being full of "steam." As soon as we got down there and turned on the lights... No steam...

There were no pipes, no steam vents near there, nothing....

OooooOOOOOOooooooo!!!!!!!

I don't want you to be sad. Just think "time" is a thing of this dimension. If for example when we die we are not bound by gravity, bodies, time then maybe what we see in our time is not their time perception.

A few years ago on HBO they did a special on hospice and how it helped 3 people. One of them was a small child who had a degenerative condition and was in drug induced coma. He had exceeded the time in hospice when he was expected to die. The case managers/nurses all met and staffed care. They decided the child was waiting to see his mother who had been banned by the father/daughter from seeing him. The mother had left the family after finding out the boy was sick. The father and daughter could not/would not forgive her. They were convinced reluctantly to allow the mother to come see her son. The cameras for HBO were running when the mother held her son and he died in her arms. So yes I think they hold on for their own reasons or the families are not ready to let them go keeping them from releasing.

FYI, I felt a oppressive presence in my bedroom years ago and prayed to GOd to make it go away. I literally saw a filmy thing fly across room out the window. I would have thought I was crazy except my dog Kippy saw it too. He barked at it as it moved and followed it with his eyes until it left. the window was not open.

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