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 stumbled across this thread a while ago and my goodness, it took quite some time to get through all 113 pages but so worth it!! I have enjoyed everyone's contributions.

So I have 2 stories; one nursing and one non-nursing...

1. Another fellow colleague told me this story and it takes place in our present workplace, a cancer centre. There was a young lad who underwent chemo treatment and his mother would stay with him all the time. There came a point where he was ready to be discharged home. He told his mom to go home and get some rest since he would be leaving the next day and would be alright. He also assured the night staff that he would be fine for the night and that he would be turning in early since he was exhausted from all the discharge teaching/planning/starting to pack his things. He also had pictures displayed in the room but had not yet taken any of those down.

At some point during the night, he cut (or pulled?) his central line and bled out. But before he did, he made sure to flip over all of the pictures in his room so they wouldn't get messed up. When the nursing staff went into his room in the morning, they found him lifeless and there was blood everywhere...some described it as a scene from a horror movie. As you can imagine, all of the nurses were shaken up and they did not admit anyone into that room until some time had passed. The first patient to be admitted into the room complained of seeing a shadow in the corner and the images of turned over pictures against the wall with blood spattered everywhere. The staff dismissed it...at first. But it kept happening over and over to other patients that they had no choice but to call in a priest and bless the room. ?

2. Some time after my grandma died, I went to the cemetery to spend some time there. Problem was, her funeral was in November and I was going to visit in spring time...I had an idea of where her marker was but not exactly. As I was driving to the spot, I just stopped my car at one point...and then for no explainable reason, edged up a little further. I got out and walked around a huge area looking in the grass for her name....finally I found it and it turns out it was in a direct path to where my car was. It was a sunny day...I started talking to nana and got upset at one point. With the sun still shining, it started to rain and lasted for a few mins. I knew then that she could hear what I was saying and was with me.

My family pastor, who had started pastoring our small church when I was a year old, was in hospice after fighting cancer and mets to the brain. The last night his daughters were visiting him, he looked up at the ceiling (they had the overhead lights off, just the bathroom light on and the door open) and he smiled and spoke the only words he said the entire time in hospice: "I'm ready Jesus!" Then he asked his daughters if they saw the light and wasn't it pretty. He closed his eyes, his daughters left, and he went peacefully in his sleep. That was the first night he didn't have any visitors--he wanted to go alone.

My grandfather was always humming some strange song that no one else knew. He'd hum it all the time, when he was reading or watching TV, and if you asked him about it he'd look at you funny as if you were making things up; he just didn't realize he did it so much. He was in the hospital but was starting to make a recovery and I had to go out of state for a high school band trip--Tournament of Roses parade, so not exactly something I could skip. I was getting ready in the bathroom one morning, so I was all alone, and I HEARD him humming. It was so distinct that I stopped what I was doing and even peeked out into the hotel room, but my roommates were not in there either. I glanced at the clock and noted the time and what time it was back home (3 hour time difference). When I got back home from the trip, my parents picked me up at the airport and as soon as we got home, they told me my grandfather had died while I was gone. I started crying and asked when, and they told me--it was the exact day and time that I had heard him humming. He knew I was gone and came to say goodbye when he was leaving this earthly place for his eternal home. That was 22 years ago and I still remember it as clear as a bell--I've got goosebumps just recalling the story now!

It has been reported that some victims of torture, during the act, would retreat into a fantasy world from which they could not wake up. In this catatonic state, the victim lived in a world just like their normal one, except they weren’t being tortured. The only way that they realized they needed to wake up was a note they found in their fantasy world. It would tell them about their condition, and tell them to wake up. Even then, it would often take months until they were ready to discard their fantasy world and PLEASE WAKE UP

Specializes in Cardiac, CVICU.

When I worked on tele, we had one room that the call light would turn on randomly even if we didn't have a patient. The staff said there was a ghost haunting that bed. :dead:

The ghost was obviously upset because he didn't receive his pain medication on time or wanted to use the restroom right then. He had just always been confrontational.

:)

I've enjoyed reading this thread so much! Everyone has great stories.

I work in an LTACH that used to be a general hospital in the city. The LTACH bought out some floors, but parts of the hospital remain abandoned. During my lunch break I sometimes would wander through the abandoned parts: old OR suites, ICUs, nurses stations, all with the fixtures ripped out and giant cockroaches scurrying everywhere. Never saw a ghost but it was creepy nonetheless. This hospital used to host one of the city's two burn centers. My unit used to be the step-down unit for the burn ICU. Our fire alarms go off ALL THE TIME FOR NO REASON. Sometimes more than once per day. Several times a week. It often happens around 0930. The entire building has a code red but there's never any explainable reason.

Another time I was at the nurse's station and we heard the bell in the elevator ringing. Someone was yelling "Help!" and we heard pounding. We called security to tell them someone was stuck in the elevator. I then walked over to the elevator doors and was shouting to the person to try to stay calm and help was on the way. She just kept yelling for help, banging, and ringing the bell. Security called the nurses station to say all of the elevators were working and they didn't find anyone stuck. At this moment, whoever was in the elevator was suddenly quiet.

A few times I have been on the elevator and for no reason it went to the 5th floor. The 5th floor is totally unoccupied, but used to be a hospice unit. I would be going up from the ground floor and the only button lit up would be 3. But the elevator would pass my floor, go to 5th, open the door.... no one there. I never was brave enough to step foot onto the 5th floor.

Specializes in Med/Surg.

wow.. that gave me chills.. thank God he did not enter that building and harm someone else..

The one with the elevator and the "person" screaming for help is so creepy......................................................

Ghosts seem to love elevators for some reason. At one of the local hospitals that is no longer being used it had some elevators that would run on their own.

I work in Out Patient Surgery, we take call on the weekend and give IV antibiotics, or drain Denver Drains etc. to Pt's needing this done over the weekend. We are in the unit by ourselves except for the patient. I was standing in the medication room between Out Pt and PACU and out of the corner of my eye saw a tall, lanky, shadow walking through PACU. I immediately looked both ways in the long PACU room and didn't see anyone there. When I worked Monday (the next day) I teased my PACU co-workers about their room being haunted, one of the PACU nurses gave her own story. She and two other staff members were sitting at the nurses station in the oldest part of our hospital, they all three heard someone screaming for help, the three staff members ran toward the scream and couldn't find anyone in the whole area.

You all have to keep this post going! I have the most boring summer job and reading these make the days go much, much faster!! I'm only a student with no clinical experience so I don't have anything to contribute but if I ever do, I will share it here!

I was taking care of a 2 patient assignment in the ICU. I had the same 2 patients on back to back night shifts. Their rooms were in the same pod, but opposite ends of the pod.

Patient A was A&O x 4, never had any signs of confusion.

Sadly, Patient B coded and passed away at the beginning of my 2nd shift.

After fininishing up with the code, I walked into A's room and he was waking up from a nap. He said "It's the weirdest thing. I keep seeing a ghost swirling around the room."

I was freaked out and I wanted to ask him if she looked like my other patient, but all he could tell me was she was a "black ghost." As in shadowy, not racially.

He never had any other hallucinations, just that one right after she passed.

I am not a nurse yet. Still doing my prerequisites. My grandpa was in the hospital because he missed a couple of days dialysis. He ended up being admitted because his potassium was high. So he was in CVICU. When we would visit he would tell us about people laying in bed with him, others being in the room with him, and shadows coming from the tv. He told me it was the scariest room he ever been in. At the time we chalked it up for him hallucinating, but now after reading 24 pages of this post that it was probably patients that died in his room in the past.

Specializes in Gerontology.

We were talking about ghosts at work recently. A bunch of us work in offices that are renovated from an older nursing unit. One person worked as a nurse on the unit before it became offices. So we were asking her about ghosts that may still be around.

she told us about a break room that was named after a nurse that died in a traffic accident on her way into work. Apparently a lot of nurses had creepy feelings while taking breaks at night in that room. Nothing really bad happened, just uneasy feelings and a sense of not being alone.

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