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...

[Zach16]

Funny that I came across this thread. I was back to work last night after being off work for a month for a radial head fracture. I work in LTC, and we had a resident years ago who had been in prison a few times for various things early in life. There was a rumor he had murdered someone, but I always found that unlikely. He and I got along for the most part, until his later days. He died one day, somewhat unexpectedly. I remember right after he died, I was walking to the back, and saw him in his wheelchair, without thinking I said hello to him and continued on. Only after I got a few feet up the hallway, I realized that couldn't be him. I turned around and he was gone.

Fast forward a week from his death. His room is empty, and I just got a new resident into his bed and settled for the night. The new residents call light goes off, and I go down. He asks me to get "that man out of the room. He's spitting on everything." Shocked, I walked out, not really knowing what to say or do. The former resident, chewed and would spit tobacco all over the floors.

Last night, I was working the same hallway the resident used to be on. There are two women in his old room now. The one woman, who is rarely confused told me multiple times to "help that man with the beard... He can't find anywhere to get rid of his chewing tobacco." It has been years since that man passed, and all night I heard things and thought I saw things.

Maybe he's still around, who knows.

[Hygiene Queen]

rynzoRN said:

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.

I love this one.

Any chance the "portal" was actually the ceiling or a vent?

A long time ago, a kid thought he was going to be clever and make a grand escape through the ceiling. Well, he didn't make it far before he crash landed at the feet of the staff who were looking for him

[rynzoRN]

Hygiene Queen said:

I love this one.

Any chance the "portal" was actually the ceiling or a vent?

A long time ago, a kid thought he was going to be clever and make a grand escape through the ceiling. Well, he didn't make it far before he crash landed at the feet of the staff who were looking for him

At this facility there was no access to vents or any type of orifice. The patient mysteriously showed up in an area that was checked a dozen times by staff claiming they went into some sort of portal, weird stuff.

However at another facility I work at there is access to the ceiling and we had a patient go up there and wouldn't come down, he also took a dump up there which was cool of him =/. Cops had to taser him and bring him down.

[Ndy-RN]

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.

Have a good day.

[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.

It may be a nonreligious thread to you, but to others this is very much a religious/spiritual deal and you are not being tolerant. It is certainly within the realms of paranormal and a lot of people are going to have different views on the cause of this. She just merely stated her opinion about what these things are and a few of you went off on her. Is she not allowed to have her opinion about what they are? She didn't try and FORCE her opinion on anyone either, just made a comment about what she believes this stuff is.

[SnowballDVM]

A close friend related this to me about a close friend of hers. His widowed mother was in the hospital, at the end stage of some chronic illness I can't recall right now. His brother was at her bedside when he noticed her looking past the foot of the bed very intently. She just stared and stared, there was nothing there, no TV, no paintings on the wall, no window, no nothing.

Finally he asked her, "Mom, what are you looking at?" And she answered in that maternal tone that brooks no argument, "Why, your father, of course, who has come to get me". She died a few minutes later.

Now whether that was a hallucination caused by the last firings of her brain, or her late husband truly had come to get her, I don't know. I hope it was the latter.

[TheGooch]

SnowballDVM said:

A close friend related this to me about a close friend of hers. His widowed mother was in the hospital, at the end stage of some chronic illness I can't recall right now. His brother was at her bedside when he noticed her looking past the foot of the bed very intently. She just stared and stared, there was nothing there, no TV, no paintings on the wall, no window, no nothing.

Finally he asked her, "Mom, what are you looking at?" And she answered in that maternal tone that brooks no argument, "Why, your father, of course, who has come to get me". She died a few minutes later.

Now whether that was a hallucination caused by the last firings of her brain, or her late husband truly had come to get her, I don't know. I hope it was the latter.

My Mom saw my Dad's parents and her Dad before she died.

[TheGooch]

rynzoRN said:

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 .

Wow, just signs up to tell others off regarding their opinions on someone trying to make this thread about demons and devils.

[rynzoRN]

TheGooch said:

Wow, just signs up to tell others off regarding their opinions on someone trying to make this thread about demons and devils.

Actually I've been a member for a while but couldn't remember my previous login information so I just decided to create a new account. I find it humorous when talking about the PARANORMAL, some of you rage on this chick for bringing up angels/demons/devils which are also PARANORMAL. So you don't agree with her belief, who cares? Move on and stop being so miserable in life.

[Neural]

My stories are pretty tame.

Quite a few times, I've had patients complain of "dark figures" standing at the side of their bed in the middle of the night, staring at them.

While some of the other nurses, who've heard similar reports from patients, assume it's ghosts, I've always figured that it's a combination of sundowning and narcotic-related hallucinations, so I document it as such.

[Christy1019, ASN, RN]

Can we all please just stay on topic? This thread has been around for a long time and gets resurrected every year around halloween. I'd hate to see it get closed down because people can't get along.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

rynzoRN said:

Actually I've been a member for a while but couldn't remember my previous login information so I just decided to create a new account. I find it humorous when talking about the PARANORMAL, some of you rage on this chick for bringing up angels/demons/devils which are also PARANORMAL. So you don't agree with her belief, who cares? Move on and stop being so miserable in life.

I think the thread is about "Your Best Nursing Ghost Story," and not about your beliefs re: the paranormal.