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...

FranEMTnurse said:
I have never mentioned this to anyone before, but when I was a little girl, I was walking down the dirt road that led to our barn when all of a sudden I had a vision that I had been in another lifetime. in the vision, I was in a coral colonial dress with a high collar and long sleeves. has anyone else ever seen anything like it?

Fascinating! I have to respond to this experience because I've never heard anyone else mention that they had a situation like this. I was quite ill (not hospice or anything even close, but a number of critical health issues led to temporary disability on my part). I spent a lot of time alone, in my quiet condo, often in bed reading, occasionally on the computer, just browsing, especially late at night when I couldn't sleep. I wouldn't turn on the lights, I'd just use the screen from the PC for light, so it was always very dim. One night, very late, I couldn't sleep and got on the computer to read product reviews for appliances -- about as far from romance or mystery as you can get! -- and suddenly, just for a second it seemed, I was somewhere else.

Specifically, I was in a room with a beautiful young man who seemed to be pleading wildly with me. He was so upset, he was beside himself. I was definitely me -- I looked like myself but like a far more beautiful version of myself, if that makes any sense. I was also far far more serene than I really am. In fact, serenity radiated from this woman (me) despite the fact that she (I) was torn up.

It felt as though I had come to a decision and I knew it was the right one, and despite the fact that I was in emotional agony, I was calm because I was so sure my decision was the right one. I believe it had something to do with children and a husband. I knew I had a husband, who was not this young man I was in love with. For some reason, I had the feeling that my husband was much older than I. I can't tell you how strange and yet real this was -- there is no way to express how I knew I was no longer in the 21st century, but I wasn't. I was in another small dark room in another century and another body. I cried out in shock, and I must have called someone's name -- I really don't remember -- because the woman who was also me looked at me without surprise, and corrected me, saying softly, "no, Catherine" as though she were correcting her name. Her voice was calm, unsurprised. And when she said it, I knew, I saw it in my mind's eye, that it was Catherine with a C ... note this was some years ago before the Duchess of Cambridge was even engaged to the Prince, so it didn't have anything to do with subconsciously thinking of Kate Middleton, who, of course, wanted to be known as Catherine. Anyway, I didn't even have time to note the young man's reaction, although I got the sense that he was also aware of me and that neither were surprised that I was there. "Catherine" looked straight at me when she answered, so I assume that she saw me ...

Then just as suddenly as I had been thrust into this tableau, I was back at my computer, back in the 21st century. It probably took you fifty times longer to read my account of it than it actually lasted; certainly it took me far longer to write it than it, than the whole experience lasted. It had such an effect on me! I wanted to get back and see what the story was, what ended up happening, but I never again, at least to date, have experienced anything even remotely like what happened on that late night so long ago.

Here is what I do know. It is fortunate for me that I have always looked very young, because I have been involved with very young men all my life. I don't even care for men my own age. My most serious relationships have been with men who are ten or eleven years younger than I am. In fact, I actually get angry and disgusted with older men who try to pick up on me. I always have. That is the only connection I can think of with "Catherine," and it's obviously a faint one. That, and our similar looks. I've always been considered very pretty, but Catherine was (is?) more beautiful than I. Still, she was very definitely me. In retrospect, much of her beauty was derived from her radiance and serenity -- perhaps I, too, would be that beautiful if my heart was as beautiful as hers!

I would love to see her again and also find out who the young man was and it they ever ended up together later in life ... I don't think it's going to happen though.

I work as a PCT on a locked medical/peds floor. Something happened last night that really creeped me out.

My unit is shaped like an H with the nurses station and a couple of med rooms in the middle of two halls of patient rooms. I was working with two nurses, and almost all of our patients had a bed alarm turned on. I was on one side of the hall when a nurse asked me to help her with something on the other side of the hall. We walked past a side door of the nurses station when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was my imagination because I was tired and I rarely work nights. Then the nurse behind me asked me if I saw someone. We checked to see if it was a reflection and then we checked the whole unit. The other nurse had been in a patient's room the whole time and there was no one else on the unit.

About half an hour later I was charting in the nurses station alone. As I previously mentioned, my unit is locked. We have a camera outside of the doors, but you can also see into the end of one of the halls where patient rooms are at. The monitor is right next to where I was sitting and I felt an overwhelming need to check the monitor. I look up at it and I see a man walking inside of the unit toward the patient rooms. I only saw him for a few seconds before he faded away. I found both of the nurses working with me, and they had both been in patient rooms on the other end of the unit. I had the same nurse from earlier check the other end of the unit with me, and of course there was no one there.

After we checked the unit, I asked the other nurse if anything has happened at that end of the hall recently. She had no idea of what had been going on. She said that a patient passed away down there over the weekend. Apparently it was completely unexpected and rather traumatic for everyone involved.

Needless to say, I will not be working another night shift any time soon!

I may have posted this before. We had a CVI patient who liked to mess with the bed controls, and he especially liked to reach through the bedrail and push the button that made the bed go up and down. UP was his favorite direction to go. We had to watch him constantly lest he decide out and over the side was his next move. He died early one day. For a few days after that the bed started going up and down entirely on its at random times. It completely freaked out nights! We finally had maintenance replace it.

Ok, I am back with another tale of strange occurrences. As from an earlier post, I was once stationed at a base in NM and the hospital was downsized to a clinic. We still ran ambulance services, Family Practice, Immunizations, Women's Health, etc, just stopped inpatient care all together. When I was working ambulance services, all doors to the building were locked except the door to the ambulance bay. We had a security camera that watched that door and anyone that come in after hours we saw them on camera and they had to pass by us and check in so we could account for them while inside. I was working one night and one of my coworkers was trained in sterilizing instruments so she said she was going up to Central supply to run the autoclave and get instrument packs ready for the clinic the next morning. She didn't believe any of the crap the rest of us told her and didn't believe the story about the night we couldn't keep the doors and windows closed on the 2nd floor. She was on the 2nd floor 2 or 3 nights a week running sterile supply and had never seen or heard anything. We were in the military for crying out loud. Well she came back down a little later and says to me "Who came in while I was upstairs?" I told her no one. Well she had heard some children running around and giggling and heard someone tell them to be quiet. I told her no one had come in and ran back the video tape and let her watch. Nothing. She went back upstairs sometime later to get everything out and packaged up. When she came back down, she was obviously agitated and told me and the other tech that we weren't funny. We didn't know what she was talking about. When she went back up, all the doors and windows were wide open. And she closed them all and went on about the process of finishing up with the sterile supplies. When she came back out of there, all the doors and windows were wide open again and she could hear children giggling. We showed her our log, we had an ambulance call to a house on base and had been out most of the time that she was upstairs, alone. We had only been back a few minutes when she came down. I told her we even called her on the radio and told her we were going out on a run and that she answered back that she would be ok. She said she had put the radio down at the old nurses station when she was closing the windows the first time and forgot to take it with her into the sterile supply area. Needless to say we were all freaked out by that. As far as I know, she never would go upstairs by herself anymore after that.

Rohvannyn said:
I know I'm responding to an old post here, but I've had a creepy experience in Minnesota too. My mom and I were visiting, and we were driving around back roads in a rented car. I'd neglected to bring a compass (never again!) and we'd gotten ourselves turned around. We were going past an open field and my mom says something like "I see this Tall Thing out there" and for some reason that really freaked me out. The moon looked huge and creepy, and the shadows were strange and it was just very odd. I never found out what the Tall Thing was either, but it seemed like a shadow and it scared me beyond all reason.

In the daylight, Minnesota was beautiful. We were up near Ely. This is indeed somewhat nurse related, Nurse's Aide related anyway, because both my mother and I have been in that profession.

Hey there!

my friend who recently moved into my house also said she saw one dark tall skinny shadow. I wonder if your mother and she saw the same thing...

First, I just want to say how much I have enjoyed reading many of the stories that you all have shared. I also have a couple of experiences with the spirits with friends and on my own. Though, most of them happened outside of the work setting. I have always been sensitive to things, especially to people's energy and emotions. I guess you can call me an empath. I am also very spiritual, I believe most spirits are genuine and some want us to acknowledge them by making themselves "known."

Story 1:

A close friend's old house was haunted. We used to see orbs, shadow clouds appearing and disappearing. A few years later, her family's had fallen into a financial crisis that forced them to sell the house and moved into an apartment. The spirits followed them. My friend's sister saw a lady with short hair sitting inside the bedroom by the window with her back facing the door. Then suddenly disappeared as the friend's sister walked in.

Story 2:

I was meditating on the couch one night. As I was focusing on my breathing, I heard a female teenager's voice, saying "hey" into my right ear. I immediately opened my eyes, but no one was there. I blamed it on my tiredness and continued to meditate. So I closed my eyes again and heard another "hey," into my left ear right after. I did not try to make any more communications and headed to bed. Since then, I have been convinced that there is continuity of life after death.

I have a few more stories to share but don't want to bore you guys. I would love to hear more from you!

Specializes in L&D; GI; Fam Med; Home H; Case mgmt.

I don't think you would bore anyone with your stories. This stuff is fascinating.

The tall skinny thing in a dark open field in Minnesota is pretty freaky too, LOL.

I love how this thread just keeps going... and going... and going...

Resident who was on hospice rang one night. I answered her call light. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and when I walked in, she looked at me and point blank said.

" I'm supposed to tell you 'Thank You." from this group of people here."

Me: " Oh...that's nice. Is it for me in particular or the CNA?" (It was me and one other working that night.)

"Yes you. They said tell the Deaf one that we say 'Thank you.' "

Me: (flustered) " Well....okay. You're Welcome." (cough)

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

When my late uncle was dying (colon CA) he was in an inpatient hospice facility during his final months. (No other caregivers close by who could do 24/7 care.) Anyway, we were kind of used to him having what seemed like one foot here and one foot in another world. He talked to people and pointed at things we couldn't see. It wasn't scary at all, more like, we know the people who've gone on before are coming back to show him the way.

The only exception to that was a couple times my cousin and I had to yell at my late grandpa (his dad), who was a mean SOB to most people on a good day, and tell him to get the hell out of the room and not come back. We yelled at Gramps a couple times and told him to leave us all alone, and it seemed to make my uncle fall asleep better.

DefmamaNurse said:
Resident who was on hospice rang one night. I answered her call light. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and when I walked in, she looked at me and point blank said.

" I'm supposed to tell you 'Thank You." from this group of people here."

Me: " Oh...that's nice. Is it for me in particular or the CNA?" (It was me and one other working that night.)

"Yes you. They said tell the Deaf one that we say 'Thank you.' "

Me: (flustered) " Well....okay. You're Welcome." (cough)

That gave me goose bumps.

I was in a patient's room the other night and for a split second I swore I saw a person standing in the corner, patient gown and everything. I kept calm but I was definitely checking my sanity.

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Years ago when I was working nights at a LTC facility, there was a resident who was a former nurse and she used to make rounds with me. She was still hale and hearty at 100, and she had so many stories! But one night as she followed me on my rounds, she began to talk about her children, all of whom had predeceased her, and mentioned that she had seen them recently; knowing her to be of sound mind, I got a UA just in case a UTI was making her loopy.

She didn't have one. But she continued to talk about the conversations she was having with her oldest daughter, and finally one night she called out to me from her room: "Look, here she comes...she's coming for me!" Her voice was full of joy. Then, silence.

I ran to her room and there she was, dead. She had the most amazing smile on her face, though, and I could feel a presence in the room as if someone had really been there. Maybe they were...who knows? All I know is that she was happy as she passed away. I'll never forget it.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
VivaLasViejas said:
Years ago when I was working nights at a LTC facility, there was a resident who was a former nurse and she used to make rounds with me. She was still hale and hearty at 100, and she had so many stories! But one night as she followed me on my rounds, she began to talk about her children, all of whom had predeceased her, and mentioned that she had seen them recently; knowing her to be of sound mind, I got a UA just in case a UTI was making her loopy.

She didn't have one. But she continued to talk about the conversations she was having with her oldest daughter, and finally one night she called out to me from her room: "Look, here she comes...she's coming for me!" Her voice was full of joy. Then, silence.

I ran to her room and there she was, dead. She had the most amazing smile on her face, though, and I could feel a presence in the room as if someone had really been there. Maybe they were...who knows? All I know is that she was happy as she passed away. I'll never forget it.

That's a beautiful story!

+ Join the Discussion