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...

[countrynurse09, LPN]

I don't believe that ghosts are evil spirits. I believe they are like you and I, human (or sometimes animal) spirits that are no longer connected to physical bodies, etc. But if you believe in ghosts, spirits, or whatever, then you have to believe in something. Some type of God or higher power or whatever you want to call it, because without that there could be no afterlife.

[NerdNurseOdom]

When I first started working as a CNA full time it was at a LTC facility and I hadn't experienced death before when it came to a resident. So while working my usual 11-7 shift me and two other nurse where talking and they where mentioning something about on of the residents was not looking as though she was going to make it any longer then a few days.

They looked at me and one of the nurses asked, " have you ever had to clean and ready a dead person for the mortuary people to come and get for transport?"

I said, "no I haven't. I haven't even seen a dead body before. So this will be my first time doing something like this."

I won't lie I was more curious then scared about seeing someone's body that passed. As we continued to talk and me explain why since I was still pretty new to the field and then it happened.

Some reason it felt like time had slowed down around me and I saw a dark shadow pass me on my side and saw a flicker of light follow it. But that wasn't that scariest part mind you. I heard it. I heard what sounded like a bell chime but it had a unexplained weird sound to it. It didn't sound like a normal bell chime. It sounded more light and high sounding. I dunno it's really hard to explain the sound. But I when I saw the light and shadow go away, it felt like time went back to normal pace and I looked at my nurses and asked them if they had heard the bell.

I swear the look on both of their faces made it seem like I was crazy or something. I tried to explain what I saw and heard and one nurse looked pale and the other nurse stood quiet.

After that night, I went home and had to look up what I heard so at least I know what it was so next time I know...and what I heard was called, Deaths bell.

Know I have seen plenty of crazy stuff in my life growing up because most of my family, including me have always been able to see things like ghost and stuff but never have I seen death and heard its bell before.

And a not even a day or two after, the patient died

[hotcakes]

I work night shift, one night I had a pt who had an order for sitter protocol b/c she was confused and impulsive and tried getting out of bed. At about 23:00 I relieved my sitter for her 15 min. break, as I sat I the pt's room with the lights off, trying to chart in the corner of the room. I heard something fall from the pt's bedside, I got up to investigate, I found the pt's basin on the floor, so I picked it up and placed it back in its place and thought to myself that maybe the pt had somehow had knocked it down. When my sitter came back I mentioned what had happened and she said the same thing happened to her ealier and assured me that she had secured the basin so it wouldn't fall out again. We both thought it was strange and I left the room shutting the door behind me to try to keep the noise down in the pt's room. At about 03:00 I was about to go in to the pt's room when I was distracted by a coworker who had a question for me, as I stood a few feet away from the pt's room the door opened and I waited for the sitter to come out of the room, since she wasnt walking out I decided to approach the door. The sitter was also on her way to the door. She thought I had opened the door and i thought she had opened the door, we both said, "you need something?" we both answered at the same time "no" the sitter said she saw that the door had opened and assumed that it was me, and when I didn't walk in she decided to walk out.later I sent her on her lunch break and as I sat in the dark in the corner of the room the same basin fell out of the bedside table, this time I just left it on the floor. When the sitter cameback I told her what had happened and to leave the basin on the floor, she agreed. When I left the pt's room I closed the door once again with the sitter inside. Later on in the shift when it was time to give her 15 min break, the sitter came up to me and said she was talking to the pt and the pt had asked, who was the tall black person who stood over her bed. The sitter said she got goose bumps up and down her body and replied to the pt, "oh, it must have been a nurse." Little did the pt know that nobody else had gone in that pt's room but the sitter and I. In the next room another lady who waz A&Ox4 said, "will you tell those children laughing to let me sleep and pointed to the corner of the room which was empty. Another pt a few rooms down also mentioned that there were too many kids in this hospital at late hours of the night. I didn't know what to tell those pts so I just brushed it off. It was the creepiest night so far I have experience in this hospital, and hopefully it wont happen again.

[Delphinese]

It took me a month to read all these posts! What a fun thread! My mom and grandma are both nurses, and I've had several experiences.

When I was pregnant with my oldest, I had severe pre eclampsia. I don't think they cared much if I made it or not, because I had a false positive for drug use in my 24 hour urine collection, and they told me not all mommies take their babies home. My blood pressure was in the 200s/150s for an hour after that lovely conversation! You can imagine how much nicer they were after the full blood analysis showed absolutely no drugs of any kind! Well, they left me alone a lot after delivery, even though I still had high blood pressure, and I was laying down in bed on my stomach, when I felt someone rubbing my back in s comforting, motherly way. I turned my head to thank whoever was doing it, and saw I was completely alone! That is my only story from a hospital setting.

My great grandma passed away this year, a hundred years old and one of my favorite people. We weren't able to fly up north for her funeral, so I didn't have much closure, and missed her so much. A few weeks after she died, I had a very vivid dream that she was visiting me to meet my girls and see what I was up to. I woke up feeling so loved, but didn't mention it to anyone for a few days. When I did tell my mom, she got quiet, then asked me what night I dreamt it. Turns out, she had dreamed about her that same night, along similar themes too, with it being just a happy visit. My mom called grandma to tell her how cool it was that great grandma came to see us, only to find out that grandma had a dream that same night as well! We all got goosebumps then, and truly think she came to see us in our dreams.

My brother and I had haunted toys. A toy phone with no electronic parts, no batteries, no sound...started ringing one night as we were playing. That thing got tossed fast! A remote control robot would move on it's own a lot, until we finally tossed it, thinking someone else in the neighborhood had a toy with the same frequency, until it showed up in the toybox again!! We took it straight to the dump the next time! Our house used to be barracks for the air force during WWII, so ghosts were common, everyone in the neighborhood had their own stories.

[Ndy-RN]

Silence is the best answer for people like you. Last time I checked I have freedom to speak,think and believe in what I know is truth. Hopefully you find something else like a tree to attack.

[Girlafraid13]

countrynurse09 said:

I don't believe that ghosts are evil spirits. I believe they are like you and I, human (or sometimes animal) spirits that are no longer connected to physical bodies, etc. But if you believe in ghosts, spirits, or whatever, then you have to believe in something. Some type of God or higher power or whatever you want to call it, because without that there could be no afterlife.

I don't believe in god or a high power but I'm still a big chicken when it comes to spooky noises. Just last week I called my dad (who does not live with me) to come to my house to check my room because I heard a noise and thought it was either a ghost or someone hiding in there. He came right away and turns out it was the curtain flapping because of the wind. Heh.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

Ndy-RN said:

Silence is the best answer for people like you. Last time I checked I have freedom to speak,think and believe in what I know is truth. Hopefully you find something else like a tree to attack.

when you attempt to interject your religious views in a nonreligious thread, you get a response. But you could not maintain you silence, you had to come back and pronounce that you would ignore. geesh.

[beckysue920]

I was a fairly new grad when this experience occurred. It was a Saturday morning and I had been 'elected' to be the group facilitator for that morning's process group. One gentleman (I'll refer to him as S) had been admitted to the unit for depression because he was a dialysis patient (cannula (sp?) was located in his lower right leg) and had recently been told he was not a candidate for home dialysis. He was extremely angry and let it be known to everyone in group by verbally attacking a little old lady who had no idea what she had done to warrant such an attack.

S went to his room for a nap after lunch and expected his wife's visit at 2 pm. His wife went into his room, put the clothes she brought in on the chair which was beyond the bed near the window. Shortly thereafter she returned to the nurses station and asked what was wrong with her husband. She stayed at the station's door and I went to check on S. Never in my wildest imagination could I believe what I had walked into...S was reclining on his bed, his right foot was hanging somewhat off the bed. I looked down and saw an enormous amount of blood! S had cut his dialysis tube and bled out...he channeled his anger inward and committed suicide! (We always referred to it as "the dirty deed".)

(To this day, I am still wondering how his wife 'appeared' so calm when she came to the nurses station, she had to have walked past her husband and see all the blood that was slowly creeping towards the chair where she had placed his clothes.)

Fast forward to a few nights later, when I had the Night Shift to work. I made my rounds and as I walked by S's room (no subsequent patient had been admitted to the room yet and it was still locked)...a COLD BLAST of icy air blew out from under the door and grabbed my ankles!! Too freaky...one I'll never forget.

My brother died from AIDS 4 days before Thanksgiving. My Mom and youngest sister got to the hospital first. I was 400 miles away and driving with another one of my sisters to the hospital.

Quite a while after, I asked my Mom how she was when she saw my youngest brother shortly after he had died. (None of us had been able to be at his bedside when he was breathing his final breaths.) My Mom said he had the look of AWE on his face. Shortly thereafter, I asked my youngest sister about it. She said, "It looked like he had the S#$T scared out of him!!"

On Thanksgiving my Mom decided to have the usual holiday meal, despite the bittersweet circumstances. It was a dreadfully cold, overcast day and I am always cold...to the point of having layers upon layers of clothing with little relief. As we sat, morosely eating our meal, I suddenly became almost TOO warm...almost hot. Later I found through documents I had, regarding my brother's death, that he had been cremated on Thanksgiving...hence the warmth I incurred. He was a chef, and after his death, if I were fixing a meal I would feel a warmth om my riight arm...it was as if my brother was guiding me.

Back to the Thanksgiving Dinner...there were 13 people at the table. I am superstitious and was aware of the 13-people superstition, but was too grief stricken to try to change anything...although I did wonder who would be next.

133 days later...the answer came...my MOM died!! (I still get teary thinking of those God-forsaken events.) While we were on the way to bury my Mom , a mile-long freight train impeded our trek to the cemetery. My 1st reaction was of anger, and I immediately chilled out and telepathically was imparted with "Your Mom was put on this Earth to have 6 children. Also, she was to make sure her youngest son made it HOME. She completed her earthly mission." That totally gave me peace and a complete understanding. (As an aside...and totally appropriate, my brother's ashes were put in my Mom's coffin. I insisted on seeing them...there he was, nestled against my Mom.)

I edit submissions to the Near Death Experiences site, and some of you have asked about animals. A few of the Narratives have mentioned that the NDErs have been greeted by their pets...it's encouraging...at least to me.

[largeangel]

I am new to this site, but what brought me here is the true ghost stories by nurses. I am an RN, worked on the graveyard shift for all my nursing career, but spent 16 1/2 years at a psych facility that was haunted Thanks, all!

[ixchel]

nursermk said:

As a young nurse many years ago working PMs on the surgical unit. Only one elderly lady in a four bed ward room who was upset about being alone in there on Halloween so I made sure and rounded every hour. About 9pm she started getting upset saying there were ghosts outside (you could see kids dressed to trick or treat on the sidewalk across the street) and a man under her bed. After the third time in 15 minutes she turned on the call light (I had four other patients as well) I sat with her for a few minutes and she said "LOOK UNDER THE BED, HE'S THERE!" So to prove a point I dramatically lifted the bedspread and looked under and there was some guy looking back at me! He snuck in thru ER to hide from the cops, intoxicated. Luckily we were in a small hospital with the police right down the hall and they took him out. The rest of the shift I had to listen to her go on and on about not believing her, she was right--I was wrong, she told me and I didn't listen...yadda yadda.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!! I think I'd need some lorazepam for me to finish that shift. I'd share with grandma, so she could get some sleep, too. [emoji16][emoji79]

[ixchel]

robred said:

I was told the story by a nurse who worked at a military hospital in North Dakota. She related that a patient of hers, who was a middle-aged man, died unexpectedly in the middle night during one of her shifts. Within a month of that happening, whenever that room (313!) in which the patient had been was vacant and that nurse was working, the call light would go on. Again, the room was vacant and it was the middle the night and the call light would go on... By itself. This began to occur with some frequency, but only when that specific nurse was working. At first, it was thought that someone is playing a practical joke on a very mean level, but then others came to witness the same thing and talk to begin the spread that there was a ghost … Likely that man's spirit. Finally, it came to a point, that one night, again, that that yours was again working, the room is vacant and the call light came on in the middle of the night. that same nurse went into the room and said, " i'm sure you died, it wasn't my fault, we have much work to do, please give us some rest." And never happened again.

We changed our semi privates to privates awhile ago, and the room numbers reflected the old room numbers, which ended up being odd-only numbers. Before this was fixed, an even number in that group (a number that no longer existed) kept ringing the operator as code blue. It was funny the first couple of times, when doctors, lab, RT and nurses would show up and know where that room even existed. After the first couple of times, it was just creepy.

[rynzoRN]

morte said:

when you attempt to interject your religious views in a nonreligious thread, you get a response. But you could not maintain you silence, you had to come back and pronounce that you would ignore. geesh.

How is this "interjecting" your beliefs on someone else? Look at the definition of the word first then get back to me. Simply stating what you believe is not forcing you to believe what she does. If you don't believe that ghosts are demonic spirits simply disagree and move on, she's not forcing you to believe that way, absolutely ridiculous logic being displayed here.

Now I will get to my ghost story. I work in a psych ward and there is always good activity in these institutions. There is a doctors office that is haunted and the site was built on Indian grounds (what a great place to build a psych ward.) One of my supervisors told me that he doesn't believe in the paranormal but this strange occurrence happened to him one night when he went up to the doctors office to slip a paper under the door for the doctor to sign in the morning. This was about 2-3 am and as soon as he slipped the paper under the door something from inside kicked the door so hard he almost fell back. His first thought was that a patient had escaped and somehow locked themselves inside of the office. He called security up and they opened the door and no one was inside. He returned a day later and put his ear up to the door and heard a growling and hissing noise. He also told me that other staff have heard knocking, banging, and have seen the door handle jiggle walking by. A security officer told me that he went up there and saw the door kind of "bending" supernaturally. Very creepy stuff, but I cannot get anything to happen for me as I have gone up to the office a few times late at night trying to invoke a response but haven't had any luck yet.

We have also had one patient disappear off the face of the Earth for an hour while a full scale search was going on inside the unit. There is absolutely no where to hide in the unit and this patient was gone for an hour only to just appear out of no where. When questioned, she told staff she walked through a "portal" in the wall and then returned .