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...

Well I called to talk to a friend after I got off from work tonight and he was telling me that their door alarms had been going off while all of the residents are still in bed. He saw the reflection of someone behind him in the window. Two of the residents are talking to and about people in their rooms. This from the CNA that told me that the ghosts didn't like him, well these do.

This isnt a nurse story but it is something that I have always held close to my heart.

I remember when my dad died (it was pretty sudden) and feeling like he was still in the house but never seeing him.

It was a little while after his death my brother (who was about 18 mos old at the time... there are about 13 years between us) came into my sister's room (where we were all sitting and talking about how things had changed, etc) and my brother starts going to the window and wont leave it... he kept saying "Daddy's out there and he is crying" and "Daddy's crying" at that moment we all got teary eyed and I knew from then on that he was watching us.

Last year when I was torn between what to do with my life and what I was going to back to school for. I thought several times about nursing but had also thought about becoming a surg tech or even going to school to be a PT... I had several back to back dreams that all dealt with hospital experiences I had had (either my own or from visiting family, etc) and in each one I could always remember the nurse after I woke up. I have a feeling it was my dad's way of helping me decide just what I needed to do.

I believe I have posted this story in the past, but it may be worth the rewrite. This takes place in an inner city nursing home up on the third floor. The hall is to the left of the nurses station. Very nondescript with rooms on each side. Just a dull rectangle shape. The only access to this area is the elevator which is across from the nurses station and a stairwell on the other side of that, more towards the other unit. The shift is 3-11, and its about 7P. Most of the staff is off the floor for dinner. I am getting ready to begin my evening med pass with all the crushes for the tube feeds. I have a male orderly on the floor with me.

This unit has several loud patients with one in particular, a female who says a name of someone repetitively. All the time. I think the name was Mary. So along with other assorted dementia sounds there is the constant background noise of "Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary, being chanted. The orderly is

facing towards the end of the hall next to me and my med cart. I am about half way down the hall. The patient who keeps chanting Mary is the second last room on the left. He is asking me a question when the is a sudden SILENCE. The chanting woman has stopped. The silence makes us both look down the the hall towards this woman's room. We both see a little girl who literally skips out of her room and enters the last room on the right which I know is empty. We both know there are no visitors on the floor but still don't want an unescorted child running around. Plus we have noticed she was dressed kind of odd. I lock the the cart and go down the hall together. No one is in any of the rooms except the bedridden patients that were supposed to be there. We then check on the quite chanter who was not dead , just inexplicitably quiet. The little girl we saw was dressed in a salior like outfit. A popular style at the turn of the last century. A midi blouse with a large collar and necktie and having a long waist. It was over a dark pleated skirt and dark sockings. Her hair was blonde and pulled back into two braids that bounced as she skipped. She never turned towards us, just skipped purposely into the empty room. The patient stayed quite only for a few days then resumed her endless calling to someone she wanted to see and "Mary. Mary, Mary" filled the dismal halls again, but no reappearance of the little girl from the past who seemed to have given her some comfort, if only for a short time.

We all have accidents. This is an inexpirienced 16 y.o. girl who I am sure had no intention of hurting anyone when she got in the car that day. Can you imagine how you would feel if a momentary lapse in judgement had such long lasting results.

Chad, I definitely agree with you. It was very sad that she died. I had JUST seen her less than 24 hours earlier. We lived across country from her, and I had JUST returned home from a visit. I like to remember her as the lively person that she was, not someone who ended up dependent on everyone else living life in a nursing home. She would have HATED that to no end. She went at her time and she never had to live one day in a nursing home. She was so proud of her independence. Her body would have lived in a nursing home, but her soul would have eventually died.

Thank you for the kind words Cute_CNA, but I don't hold any ill will against the young driver involved. This was just a momentary lapse. I'm sure that she's living with this constantly, and I bet that she hurts. I've never met her, but I'm just guessing.

Ironically, I had a dream about my grandparents last night. That they know that I'm now married and very happy about that. That's the gist of it.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
futuregaspasser said:

okay, I know this one sounds strange, but hear me out.

we just moved into a brand new hospital, and the locker room (to the or) always sounds like there is someone in there changing (lockers closing, opening, mumbling voices ect.) but there never is (I work weekends and nights when I am the only one around). I go in there completely expecting to see someone in one of the bays, but no one is there. I have attributed this to a new building still settling in.

one day around 6pm I am at my locker and I hear this strange whooshing noise. I attribute it to the clock behind me, when I realize it is coming from infront of me. I start listening closely and it coming from the locker directly below mine. I put my ear to it and it sounds exactly like someones mouth is behind the vent breathing. I automatically reach to open the locker and as soon as I touch it, the noise stops.

the following weekend the charge nurse (that works graveyards) was in there next to that locker doing her charges at around 3am. she told me she heard breathing coming from below my locker and ran out of there. she said "I could just see a demon back there watching me."

if your charge nurse thinks she can see a demon watching her, I'd be scared to death! wouldn't hurt to see if you can get someone to exorcise it -- if that's even possible these days. I don't think I'd want to be in that locker room alone!

ruby

I had a shivery incident happen to me the other week... We lost a resident that night (she was on hospice, it was expected) and as I went back down the hall that my office is on, I heard sobbing. I started opening resident doors but could not find the source, everyone was sleeping (it was about 4am). The last door I opened was one in which noone was assigned, and the room was empty. It didn't seem as if the sobbing was coming from in there, but when I opened the door the sobbing sort of hiccupped and stopped. Noone was in the empty room, and I couldn't find out where the sobbing was coming from... it hasn't happened again though. The scariest part is that I mentioned it to a CNA who has been here for years and she said that she had the same thing happen to her twice, both times when we have had a resident die. I guess a spirit hangs around here and mourns when a resident passes away...

Specializes in MICU.

So... I work in a MICU, and for a couple of years before I became a nurse there, I worked there as a secretary. Anyway, a couple of years before THAT, there was a nurse who had some depression issues, and had gotten in hot water over something (I think it was a documentation/medication thing, not entirely sure). At any rate, he committed suicide.

So, a couple of years later, we're having a pretty slow weekend night, when I pass by J, RN filing some orders. She says, "You know, the weirdest thing happened tonight."

"Really, here? You lie," I laugh.

"No, really, this book right here?" She points to some paperback sitting on the table she's charting at. "I haven't seen this book in a long time. I had lent it out, but I figured I'd never see it again."

"Oh, why?" I'm only half-paying attention.

"Well, I lent it to R about a week before he killed himself. And it just showed back up here, tonight, on my table, when I came back from lunch."

Then I paid attention! Now, it was possible R had lent to another nurse (before he killed himself) who found it to return to J... but noone who worked that night claimed to have brought it in, and it appeared @ like 2am.

Very weird.

Peace,

S

Specializes in Neuro, Acute, Geriatrics, Rehab, Oncology.

OMG..I am all prickley here and only on the 2nd page! i have a few stories to share. My first one was when i lived in a remote tiny town in MT and I was working on the reservation and part of my pay was free rent in apts next to the nursing home. I kept seeing big muddy boots next to the door of my apt, that werent really there and heard clanging and occasionally screams and an infant from upstairs. there was only an elderly woman above me. it turns out that the "apartments" was a hospital that had been shut down Years earlier in the late 50s for doing illegal, sometimes close to term abortions.The apt I was in was part of the former maintenece area hence the boots and aboveme, the former OR and Pt rooms.

Specializes in Neuro, Acute, Geriatrics, Rehab, Oncology.

This is a more personal note. After be bought our first home,I had my newborn son in a cradle at the foot of the bed for convenience. My (now ex)husband shook me awake one night and told me the following: he had gotton up to use the bathroom and was just settling back into bed when he saw a woman in a filmy white dress float into the room and gaze down at our son. My baby whimpered and she set the cradle rocking.My husband said she then looked directly at him and then exited through the outside wall of the house!! that scred me to no end!!!! I put the cradle right up along my side of the bed from then on!!

Awww...c'mon Bipley, tell us your stories!

I have a few of them. Some types we all experience like how healthy old people can tell you the day and almost the time they will die. Had a few of those. But the one that hit home the most for me requires a bit of background.

I was not happy with a guy I had working (LTC) on my midnight shift and I was too afraid to have him work another night. So, I went down to the facility and fired him, then I took his shift. Turns out, I was right to do that, in retaliation for his being fired he set one of our buildings on fire. A building my old people were sleeping in!

You have to experience it to understand but when you are in a burning building and you are pretty sure you aren't getting out and you about to prove to the non physical people that you were right about religion all along (LOL) you quickly form a bond with all the others that aren't going to get out of the building alive either.

We did manage to get out and everyone was safe except one person who did die a few days later.

After that day I was terrified of working the midnight shift. Some of our staff lived on the property such as the groundskeeper. I was forever waking the poor guy up throughout the night swearing I could smell smoke, or I heard crinkling of something burning. I would sit at the nurses station and just shake and cry. (A little PTSD? :rolleyes: )

G was a lady that has a history of a stroke. She didn't have poor short term memory, she had NO short term memory. After 7 years she still couldn't remember who I was or what she was doing in this building.

From the time of her stroke to the time she died G ALWAYS had her days and nights mixed up. She was quite content to walk the halls and quietly hum, sit with me at the nurses station, whatever she wanted. She actually had the entire A building to herself. (We had buildings A-E)

I would bribe G with candy to sit at the nurses station with me while I worked. I never had to say anything, I'd just pull the candy dish out and G would happily munch candy, we'd talk, and I'd do my work. I just needed a human to sit with me. This was our little secret. Actually, it was my little secret! LOL G wouldn't remember by the time she stood up that she even ate any candy.

Shortly after the fire it happens to be that G died and I was all alone again on the few nights I did pull an 11/7.

One night after G's death I was sitting there trembling in fear, tears streaming down my face, ready to have the best ever panic attack SWEARING I could see, hear, and smell fire/smoke again and out walks K. K was a cool old lady, she really was. She was from Germany and she was one of the people trapped in the burning building with us.

I composed myself and asked what I could do for her. She sat down and said she thought it would be nice to chat. LOVING the company and thinking she was probably unable to sleep I said sure, what would you like to chat about? She thought for a moment and finally said that G had just come to wake her up. I realized she had been dreaming. I reminded her that G passed away recently. K said she was aware of that but G woke K and explained that when I work nights I become afraid and needed someone to sit with me so I could do my work. G told K I was having a rough night and it might make me feel better if K came out and spent a little time with me.

I just sat there not knowing what to say, I mean... that was MY secret. I never told anyone about G, the candy, or our talks at night. K stood up, walked behind the nurses station, sat down and pulled out the hidden dish of candy. Then she proceeded to tell me what life was like for her when she was my age living in Germany.

K died about two years later but to this day I dearly love that woman. What a gem. Same with G.

I don't expect anyone to believe it but it's true.

OMG, Chad!! That is weird. When I had just started out working as a CNA, my first job was in a SNF and we had a patient on the first floor. He was a nice guy and one day he started to decline. The day before he died, we couldn't get him to go to sleep for NOTHING so we asked him what was wrong, and all he kept saying was he was afraid because these black things were around his bed waiting for him. When they (the 3rd shift) discovered that he had passed late that night, they said his face had a look of terror on it. That still bothers me to this day.

Well this didn't happen in any facility or place I have worked for, but I LIVED with one of these types of spirits for six years. I started doing recordings of my downstairs because things would happen down there, like stuff turning on/off by itself, whispering, stuff moving. Well during the times when I ran out of tape to record and "talk" to whom ever was there, they would get really active. Once I was on the couch laying down with a sheet over me and I got the sheet ripped off of me, I had my shirt pulled up a few times, and have had this something follow me up the stairs and sit on my bed. I left the recording on one night after asking only about three questions and when I went to play it back, a little after I annouced that i was tired and going to bed, I can hear this man's voice saying ask me more questions please, please ask me more questions. Also had my son screaming for me like someone was trying to kill him, because my lights would flicked on and off as if someone was messing with the switch. We learned to live with them, yes I said them, there were three, but I am kinda glad that we moved because I can sleep without being pushed, pulled, or have things moved when I didn't pay attention to them.

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