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...

( Demon Possesion! )

Many years ago on the Women's Locked Ward I experienced a freaky situation.

I was working the Grave Yard Shift, and for 3 nights straight a very heavy set female Pt., had been restrained to bed, and heavily medicated, in an attempt to control her aggressive, threatening behavior. She was not only a threat to herself, but also to everyone on the Unit. She was a very large and strong woman, who was prone to violence towards others.

The entire time she was restrained she would stare at the wall opposite the foot of her bed, and she would speak in a deep gutteral voice in a language unknow to any of us. It really sounded like some demonized language, and she spit and sputtered as she snarled and glared at the wall. She clearly was interacting with someone, or something that none us could see.

While all the time she resisted against the restraints, and occassionally was able to slip out of the restraints, requiring additional Staff to assist to get her back into the full bed restraints she was kept in.

They had given her every medication they could think of, and multiple doses of many nueroleptics. But nothing fazed the shear brutish energy that raged inside her body.

Plus all during these 3 days she never slept once.

It was about 1 am, and I was standing out in the hallway about 15 ft. from the Pt.. 2 or 3 other Staff were tending to the restrained Pt.. Giving her yet another Injection trying to calm her down.

I stood with a young LPN as we watched the goings on in the Pt's. rm.. I leaned in close to the LPN and in hushed voice I said to the LPN, "When they behave this way, I truely believe they are Demon Possessed!". ( There was was no way the Pt. heard me say this. )

But no sooner had I said that, the Pt. turned abruptly away from the wall she had been growling at, and glared at me and said loudly in her deep gutteral voice, "And you need to lose some weight Fat Boy!". And just as quickly as she said that, she re-engaged whatever she was interacting with in her wall. Speaking in her deep gutteral demon sounding voice.

With in 15 mins. she was sound asleep.

I truely do believe she was Demon Possessed, and that the Demon in her would have kept up her ranting and raving as it had done for the last 3 days, and nights, if I hadn't spoke of it's presence.

Except that when I admitted to that LPN that I thought the Pt. was Demon Possessed, that was all the Demon had wanted. Was for someone to recognize that they were present in that Pt.. After that the Demon was satisfied, and allowed the Pt. to rest.

Several of my coworkers disagreed. Saying that the Pt. would on occassion say very lucid things.

But I tell you her voice sounded very demonistic to me, and most everyone who observed her during that 3 day period. Though most would never admit it, for fear of being ridiculed as being mentally deranged themselves.

Was it just a co-incidence, or was she really Demon Possessed?

We'll never know for sure.

We had a lady on our unit who had advanced cancer, but refused to consent to a Do Not Resuscitate order. She eventually became unresponsive and her family gave a DNR order. I was working night shift when she died. Right at the time she passed the electricity blinked off, everything got dark for a few seconds and the magnetic fire doors banged shut.

Several years ago, on a Unit at the Hospital where I work the Grave Yard Shift, I had just completed my rounds checking on the Patients in my care. All the patients were in bed asleep. All had their room doors shut, and all was quiet on the Unit.

My coworker was in the Nurses' Station doing everything she could to avoid having to come out on the Unit to do any direct Patient care.

This was perturbing to me. Especially when I heard a female voice say to me, "Marva is awake!"

I was P.O.'d that my coworker would tell me this, and not offer to help take care of this Patient's needs. So I decided to wait a bit to see if she would come out of the Nurses' Station to help me. But she never did!

I proceeded down to Marva's room, I opened Marva's door, and sure enough Marva was awake. She was confused about where she was, and kept insisting that she was on a freight train.

I informed her that she was in the Hospital, and on the 3rd floor. I got her tucked back into bed, turned off her light, shut her door and went to the Nurses' Station.

I told my coworker that I had gotten Marva tucked back into bed.

My coworker said, "Oh? Was she awake?"

I said, "Didn't you just tell me 10 mins. ago that she was awake?"

My coworker denied that she had.

So who told me? All the other Patients were asleep in their rooms with their doors closed. ( Hmmm? Marva's door was closed too! )

So who could've known she was up, and awake in her room?

Seems like only a Ghost could've informed me of that fact!

Specializes in NICU.

We had a patient on our floor last week who was very ill with pneumonia. She was elderly and had a trach. She was also on remote telemetry. It seemed like almost everyone was at lunch and I was hanging around the nurses station answering call lights and the phones. Well our telemetry phone rang (never a good sign). The lady watching her monitor downstairs told me to quickly go to room "000." Heart rate was dropping and was right around 40. I hung up and headed down to the room as quickly as i could. I then could hear another phone in the nurses station ringing. I obviously ignored it as I passed another nurse and grabbed her to come with me. By the time we got to the room the patient was gone. No heart rate. By now the patient's primary nurse was in the room with us. They page down to the room saying she had a phone call. The nurse said to tell them she'd call them back. The secretary said, well it is "000's" daughter.

That patient's daughter must of called the second her mom's heart stopped. She had just left to go home and shower and she decided to call back because she had a bad feeling and wanted to know if maybe she should come back. The nurse unfortunately told her yes you need to come back. At that point the daughter knew why. Seemed strange to me.

( The names have been changed to protect the innocent. )

I was working the Grave Yard Shift on the Children's Unit with a coworker named Gill Churchman. Back in the good ol'days we could play cards, read books, but Gill's and my passion was playing Chess.

One fatefull night that we working together we ended up playing 27 games of Chess. Woohoo!

Anyway I digress...during the middle of all these 27 games, I asked him if he was seeing anything strange going on in the south hall way. He said he had seen a man standing in the center of the hall looking at us. He said he was dressed in khaki colored shoes, khaki colored socks, khaki colored jeans, and a khaki colored shirt.

This was the first encounter of the khaki colored ghost that I remember. Although I have to admit I did not see the khaki ghost this night.

I was having my own bizarre paranormal experience that night on that ward. I saw a strange dark blue object move left to right across the hall, but at the ceiling height. This object came straight out of the left wall and straight into the right wall unencumbered by the brick walls.

That ward was "South 5" it was one of the more haunted wards in our Hospital. Though it seems that the south wards all in general, are more haunted than those on the north side of the hospital.

All the south side wards are now under the jurisdiction of another Agency, and the Hospital staff are not allowed to go in these areas anymore. Dang! I miss the activity that I experienced over there!

I have asked Gill once several years after the Khaki Colored Ghost encounter if he remembers that night. He says he has no memory of that encounter.

Last night I was talking to one of the workers from our Hospital's powerhouse. He was telling me that one Grave Yard Shift that he was working, back about 7-8 yrs ago. He was alone in the powerhouse, ( it's staffed with only one person at night ). He said a out of the corner of his eye he saw a tall, thin man sprint across the powerhouses broad floor. He described the man as being in his early 30's, with dark hair. He went to investigate to see who it was, and couldn't find anyone.

He says he experiences things occassionally, has that feeling at times that there is some type of presence around him, though he doesn't see anything.

I asked him if he gets the Heebee Geebies in the tunnels that connect all of our bldgs on campus. There one area under ward North 2, in the basement hallway that seems to make everyone's hair on the back of their necks stand straight up when they pass through there.

( Here's another story! ).....................................................................

"The Khaki Colored Ghost"

It's been umteen years since we had to provide cigarettes for the indigent Patients at the Hospital I work at.

Back in the old days an hour or so of our time was spent each night, rolling cigarettes for the Pts. who couldn't afford to buy their own.

Needless to say these rolled cigs, didn't have anything more than tobacco, and the paper they were rolled with.

We were provided with a rolling machine that produced 1 cig at a time. Each night we had to roll 100 cigs, for the indigent Pts.. That is not to say that each Pt. would get 100 cigs. They didn't! They got maybe 1 cig before or after each meal, and one at night.

Anyway one night I was rolling cigs at a desk, with my back to the hallway. This left me at a disadvantage if any violent Pt. would approach me and attack me. It would be very difficult to defend my self, with my legs tucked in under the desk, and my back to them.

So I kept my eyes peeled to my back, using my peripheral vision to scout out any movement behind me.

I sat across the hall from the bedroom of one of the most violent men we had at the time. And he was the type to take advantage of a situation like this, to attack an unsuspecting Staff Person. Though thankfully he was in bed asleep at the time. However he still posed a threat to me if he should get up. So I was very mindful of noises and movements behind me.

As I neared the 90th cigarette that I had rolled that night, I spied in my left peripheral vision a man standing just out of arms reach from me, over my left shoulder. He was dressed in khaki colored canvas shoes, and khaki colored slacks. I kept my eye trained on his feet, so I could detect any forward movement, and try to fend off any attack if that's what he had in mind for me.

Also I thought if I jumped up abruptly showing him how frightened I was by his presence, that he would think I was a coward and an easy target to attack.

So I just watched him.

I finished my last cigarette #100. And packed up my supplies to put back in the office. I decided it was time to confront the Pt. and ask what it is they wanted, that they had stood behind me long enough without saying anything.

Keeping my eyes trained on his feet I turned in my chair. And as I did I scanned up his legs, but when I got to his knees, there was no body above it, and when I glanced back down to his feet they had disappeared too!

This was the 2 nd occurrence I had, of seeing a Partial Apparition. But this would not be the last time I saw or heard of this Khaki Colored Ghost!

Specializes in LTC, peds, rehab, psych.

At one time I worked at a nursing home that used to be a hospital. There were 2 sections that were connected together by an overpass. One section was the nursing home, and the other was just used for storage, but nobody ever really went in there. It was very creepy. I worked midnight shift and I would float from floor to floor depending on which regular nurse had off. Everytime I worked the third floor I would get creeped out because at the end of one of the halls was the entrance to that overpass leading to the empty building. One night I came in to work third floor the day after a patient had died. When I got up there, the CNAs told me this because they knew I was creeped out by that floor. Apparently after the patient was removed from the room, their call ball kept going off. So everytime it would go off the CNA would go in the room and shut it off. The call bell was dangling on the floor, so she thought that perhaps somehow it was pushing the button in, causing it to ring by itself. So finally she took it and stretched it across the bed so that it wouldn't be dangling on the floor. After she took literally 2 steps out of the door, the call light went off again. So she walked right back in and found that the call button had been pulled out of the wall and thrown over the back of a chair. Creepy.

There is also an assisted living place I work at sometimes that I hear used to be an orphanage that had caught fire. I guess some of the children, and some of the staff were killed. There are some stange things that happen there. During midnight shift there is only one nurse for the entire AL unit. That is five floors of patients. The place sort of looks like an old hotel. One time while I was working midnight shift, I decided to do hallway rounds at around 3am. I went to each floor and walked the halls to make sure nobody was outside of their room or calling for help (some of the patients would get confused and forget to call the front desk for help). Anyway, when I got the fourth floor, I got off of the elevator and this sick feeling hit me. It was like vertigo. The air was very very heavy. I started walking down the hall and the air was so thick that I just couldn't continue. Then all of the sudden the elevator started dinging over and over again. I didn't actually see anything, but it was just a really bad feeling. Later another nurse told me that while she was passing meds on that floor one night she saw a woman walk right out of the wall, cross the hallway and disappear into the opposite wall. Also, on the sixth floor there is a balcony. For some reason there are black child-size bare footprints on one side of it. The balcony wasn't there when it was an orphanage. Apparently they just appeared one day. There have never been any children up there. Also, there is a big photo of the building when you walk in the main entrance, and in one of the windows, you can see a little boy looking out. And this picture was taken after the fire when it was no longer an orphanage.

Specializes in LTC, peds, rehab, psych.
When My mom died, I was with her, as we all were,she had cancer and died while staying at my sisters house with hospice. I helped clean her up with my cousin, who was her CNA. I couldn't help feeling she was still alive. She was declared dead and i left the house before they could come and take her away, I couldn't handle that part. Well of course later I had nightmare that she came to my truck and told me she was still alive and i had to stop my dad and everyone from doing what they were doing, She was very upset and so was I and trying to figure out what to do. I beleive by this time she was already cremated. I hope to never have a dream like that again.

When I had only been a nurse for a couple months, I was put as a charge on a floor in a nursing home on midnight shift. I was told in report that I had a patient doing very poorly and was expected to pass at any time. I had never had a patient die yet, so I was very worried about it. I was also new to the place. Well, during the night while I was doing rounds I walked in and found the patient had died. I had never seen a dead person before, but I just knew looking at him that he was.

I called the RN on another floor to come up and pronounce him and she was very unprofessional. She laughed about it and was saying, "Oh, I figured it would be any time now!" and she said she was busy, and that I needed to take care of everything myself. Well I had no clue what to do and after bugging her several times she would tell me here and there where I could find stuff. She never did come up to see the patient though. So the funeral home came and picked him up. Well when I went home from my shift and went to bed I dreamt that I was arrested because the patient wasn't actually dead and that they had buried him alive. It was pretty traumatic.

When I had only been a nurse for a couple months, I was put as a charge on a floor in a nursing home on midnight shift. I was told in report that I had a patient doing very poorly and was expected to pass at any time. I had never had a patient die yet, so I was very worried about it. I was also new to the place. Well, during the night while I was doing rounds I walked in and found the patient had died. I had never seen a dead person before, but I just knew looking at him that he was.

I called the RN on another floor to come up and pronounce him and she was very unprofessional. She laughed about it and was saying, "Oh, I figured it would be any time now!" and she said she was busy, and that I needed to take care of everything myself. Well I had no clue what to do and after bugging her several times she would tell me here and there where I could find stuff. She never did come up to see the patient though. So the funeral home came and picked him up. Well when I went home from my shift and went to bed I dreamt that I was arrested because the patient wasn't actually dead and that they had buried him alive. It was pretty traumatic.

I bet. That was horrible of her. It is traumatic. My husband reminds me that they remove the blood now and replace it with embalming fluid, so noone gets buried alive anymore. It creeped me right out.

I work in a 100 yr old Psychiatric Facility on the Children's Unit. We recently had a Pt. that often had problems allowing themselves to fall asleep at night. They would stand in their doorway refusing to go to bed, even though they couldn't keep their eyes open and their heads kept bobbing as the slouched towards the door jam. You could put them in bed, but they would crawl out of bed, and stand in the doorway again.

None of the other children had this problem at night.

Recently this child was discharged. As soon as they left another young child developed this same resistance to falling asleep. They wouldn't stay in bed, and had complained of seeing a man that walked through a piece of furniture before walking through their bedroom wall.

While all the Medical Staff felt this child was having visual hallucinations, I wasn't so convinced.

I went to the child and explained to them, that I had experience with the things that were bothering them. I told them that even though seeing such things could be scary, I was convinced that they were in no harm. I reassured them that I was there to protect them, and wouldn't allow anything to hurt them.

Teaching the child to use relaxation techniques also helped them relax enough to allow themselves to fall asleep.

When I arrived at work last night, the young Pt. was in bed, but still awake. They looked at me as I walked past their bedroom, and nodded acknowledgment of my being there. With in 15 mins. they were sound asleep.

I feel it was a comfort to the child to know that I was there again to protect them in their sleep. And they slept through the rest of the night.

However I'm off work the next 2 nights. So I'll have to wait and see how they sleep, without me there.

But I told the Night Supervisor at work, that I felt that their was a Spirit there that was bothering the most vulnerable child on the unit. And that this Spirit would move from Pt. to Pt. as they were discharged from our care.

The Supv. acknowledged what I said and said., "Hmmm...you don't say? "

The Supvs. are all quite aware of my Hobby of Ghost Hunting, and know that I have experienced many hauntings, in our Psychiatric Facility. As have many of my coworkers.

These aren't directly related to my nursing career, but I have a lot of weird things that happen in my family when people die. My uncle passed away several years ago after being in ltc after being injured when a tree branch fell on him. For several weeks before he died he kept complaining about the "people" (that nobody could ever validate actually being there) that kept coming in his room wanting him to go with them. He was scared of what was happening and when he came to peace with these "people" he died. My grandmother was also in ltc. We knew she was dying and tried to be at the home as much as possible. One day while out talking in the hallway we heard her talking (no one was in her room). She was having a conversation with someone saying she would go with them now because she wasn't getting any better and she couldnt stand to be a burden to everyone. We went into the room and she had passed. Before I was born, my father was in a terrible motorcycle accident. He spent several weeks in a coma. My dad told us about the day he woke up. He said he was approached by these glowing "people" that asked him if he was ready to go. He told them no. That he wanted to get married, have children, have a career. He then woke up. After months of grueling rehab and physical therapy he recovered almost 100%, married my mother, had myself and my 5 brothers and sisters, and works as an engineer.

Okay, to summarize the posts I left last night here is what happened to my Mom......

When M. was young she lived in a house that used to be a funeral parlor, turned now into a home. Strange things happened there on a regular basis, but the first time M ever felt a real terrible presence there was when she was about 15 or 16. She had just arrived home from school and called out to her brother (who normally beat her home by about 10 minutes) but there was no answer.

She had to use the bathroom so she went into her parents bedroom (it was the nearest apparently) and closed the door, finished and dried her hands, reached a hand out to open the door, and she said she felt this instant need to freeze. To not open the door no matter what. She felt an evil beyond words there on the other side. She called out to her brother who still didn't answer.

It wasn't until the door literally began to buckle outward that M had enough and fainted. When she woke up her brother was standing over her calling her name.

The stories I could tell you about that house, needless-to-say I hate going there, which is another story in itself.....for later....

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