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...

Ok, I have finally finished reading all these wonderful stories so I must add one of my own. I have many from over the years starting in childhood and continuing to present. I was a medic in the Air Force and since retirement, work in a hospital as a telemetry monitor tech.

This story isn't a ghost story but on a scale of 1 to Twilight Zone rates Bermuda Triangle.

When I was stationed in Italy, I was on call with another medic. We had to take a young lady to a large hospital due to her having night sweats, a cough and a suspicious chest x-ray. When we arrived at the facility, we were escorted to another building behind the hospital by local paramedics. They had a badge to get us in the building, put us on the elevator and sent us to the second floor. When the elevator doors open, the three of us walk out onto the respiratory illness ward. The only lights are on over the nurses station. All the patient rooms are empty and we can't find anyone. We get back on the elevator thinking that the paramedics sent us to the wrong floor. We go to the 3rd floor (no floor higher than that) and it is ambulatory surgery, everything is locked up and no lights are on. we go back to the 2nd floor and still no nurses, no patients, it is empty. We stop on the 1st floor and it is all office space that is locked up. We head back to the ground floor ( 0 ) and I look at the directory. 2nd floor is the respiratory illness floor. I call our Italian liason and tell her we can't find anyone. She basically says don't be ridiculous they are waiting for the patient. We get back on the elevator and go back to 2nd floor. When the doors open all the lights are on, there are patients in the rooms, and nurses and aides, very busy place. A nurse that spoke English greeted us and wanted to know what took us so long as they had been notified by the paramedics that they had put us on the elevator and sent us up. The patient did not want us to leave her there but me and the other medic filed our transfer paperwork and beat it outta there. We couldn't come up with a logical explanation for that all the way back to base.

It was definitely a strange occurrence. I have more stories. Will post more later.

Ok, one more before I call it a night.

At my first assignment after training, I was at a base hospital in northern California. We had the usual stuff, call bells that went off when no one was in the room, tvs turning themselves on, etc. After about a year and half of working Med/Surg, I was reassigned to the ER. Late one Saturda afternoon, we got a call from the person that handled our education and training. He had come in to catch up on some paperwork. His office was on the 2nd floor which had been our old maternity ward. He said a call bell had started going off and he couldn't get it shut off. I told him I would head up and see what I could do. When I got up there, he had left so I was alone. I looked at the board and saw that the call bell wasn't going off on the old maternity ward (now all office and storage space) but rather in the old labor and delivery area. I went back there and wasn't able to shut it off at the board so had to go into the delivery room to turn it off. When I did that, I heard a loud crash in the room next to me. I ran out and although I saw nothing, ran into something that I could feel but not see. It was oppressive and cold and I started running and it followed me. I could feel it breathing down my neck. I jumped in the elevator and it did not come with me. When I got back to the ER, everyone said I looked like I had seen a ghost. I wouldn't tell them what happened. About 3 wks later, we called the OR team in for an emergency surgery. One of the guys came in and said he was going to the old Labor and Delivery to get something needed for the case that they had started storing down there. About 10 min later he came back, white as a sheet. I asked him what happened and told him y story. He said when he got off the elevator a man was standing there. He thought he was lost as we had a med/surg ward and an ICU but when he spoke to the man, he just smiled and walked around the corner. The surg tech followed him around and he had vanished. There was no where for him to go. All the offices were lock and the closest stair were way down a different hallway. Neither of us would go back to the old Maternity floor alone ever again.......

Specializes in Psychiatric nursing; Medical-Surgrical.
coot said:
a nurse who is a friend of mine told me a bout a patient she had that had been sick for a while and she had went in the patients room to get her vital signs and the pt was lifted off the bed just a few inches and she said that there was a black shadow that covered the room and as the pt died it was llike the shadow left the room and a very cold even spookey draft followed she says and i believe that u can tell a pt has either went to heaven or the devil him self has come to claim his soul. nursing gives u a total different look on death and the higher power

I have so much to add to this....I have seen some patients die and yes you can tell those who went to be with the Lord.

Ndy-RN said:
I have so much to add to this....I have seen some patients die and yes you can tell those who went to be with the Lord.

Yes, please do.

I've had so many paranormal experiences in haunted locations. I can "tell" if there's an evil presence just walking into a room. This experience has been confirmed on so many occasions that I know it's not my imagination.

Specializes in Psychiatric nursing; Medical-Surgrical.

I believe that ghosts are demons and deceiving spirits. The bible tells us of heaven and he'll and there is no two was about it. I have seen "them ghosts" before and some come like they are kind and as soon as I rebuke them invite name of Jesus Christ they either go and never come back or reveal their true form (horrible) before they vanish. Sometimes you sense their evil strongly and how miserable and sad these evil spirits are and sometimes you can smell them. The smell is like rotten rotten eggs or burning sulfur. See Satan is very cunning and deceitful. He comes to steal,kill, and destroy. He will come in anyway to deceive mant.Rebuke him in the name of Jesus Christ and be free. You who is living have more power than the dead and evil spirit's in the name of Jesus Christ.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Ndy-RN said:
I believe that ghosts are demons and deceiving spirits. The bible tells us of heaven and he'll and there is no two was about it. I have seen "them ghosts" before and some come like they are kind and as soon as I rebuke them invite name of Jesus Christ they either go and never come back or reveal their true form (horrible) before they vanish. Sometimes you sense their evil strongly and how miserable and sad these evil spirits are and sometimes you can smell them. The smell is like rotten rotten eggs or burning sulfur. See Satan is very cunning and deceitful. He comes to steal,kill, and destroy. He will come in anyway to deceive mant.Rebuke him in the name of Jesus Christ and be free. You who is living have more power than the dead and evil spirit's in the name of Jesus Christ.

Please leave the Bible spouting in the religion forum where the rest of us don't have to run across it.

One evening in an empty room there was a creepy face on the TV which was off and upon closer view it was just the furniture arrangement reflection. We took pictures of it (creep face) and I hope I never a spend a night in the room! The next week a PA was admitted to the room and she was just fine!

Been reading this thread for awhile now.

I figure I would give it a "bump" since Halloween is this weekend!

Hope to get some new additions!

:Ghost:

Ndy-RN said:
I believe that ghosts are demons and deceiving spirits. The bible tells us of heaven and he'll and there is no two was about it. I have seen "them ghosts" before and some come like they are kind and as soon as I rebuke them invite name of Jesus Christ they either go and never come back or reveal their true form (horrible) before they vanish. Sometimes you sense their evil strongly and how miserable and sad these evil spirits are and sometimes you can smell them. The smell is like rotten rotten eggs or burning sulfur. See Satan is very cunning and deceitful. He comes to steal,kill, and destroy. He will come in anyway to deceive mant.Rebuke him in the name of Jesus Christ and be free. You who is living have more power than the dead and evil spirit's in the name of Jesus Christ.

I don't believe in that crap. Sorry but that's how I feel about your post. Satan and god are myths IMO and are tools used by religions to keep the sheeple in line and the donation basket filled.

Ruby Vee said:
Please leave the Bible spouting in the religion forum where the rest of us don't have to run across it.

I don't understand why people have to post their religious crap on threads like this. Not everyone believes in what the various churches preach and quite frankly I think it's a BS.

Wow, that's kind of rude. Everyone else expressed their opinion, she can't? You have the option to keep scrolling if it aggravates you.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
RNstudent2017 said:
Wow, that's kind of rude. Everyone else expressed their opinion, she can't? You have the option to keep scrolling if it aggravates you.

Nope. Rude is spouting the Bible in threads other than the Religion forum. Some of us find all of that "Jesus Christ" stuff pretty off-putting. Even some of us who are Christian.

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