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...

Hi, This is my 1st post on this board. :) I just had to reply. Although my most significant experiences did not happen as a "nursing ghost story" per se. Although some have.

In 1984, I was preparing to be a bridesmaid in a friends wedding and I was expecting at the time. My friend was having another friend alter our dresses. Well, my dress came back and it was about 3 sizes too big and too long, so my Gram, whom I was very close to, as I was her 1st Grandchild, said, "I'll do the alterations for you honey". During my many fittings, we would always talk about my having her 1st Great Grandchild and how she was also making the netting for the bassinet too. She swore it would be a girl, and made a pink one. As we were getting close to my last fitting, she told me to stand up on the chair with my heels on carefully, as she could not bend over and wanted to check the length. She was 74 yrs young at the time. God I loved her. :sniff: Well, I put my heel right through the back of the gown, tearing a huge hole in it at the bottom! :eek: She calmly told me, "Get down off the chair now Emilee and please go home, I will fix it". I couldn't apologize enough as I walked out the door, she had worked so hard on it for me and I know she was a bit perturbed about it and just didn't want me to see her frustration.

A few nights later, I was sound asleep in bed, when I felt the hair on my forehead being brushed aside and felt a very distinct kiss on it and a very warm embrace. I sat straight up and looked over at my husband at the time, thinking it was him, and he was over on the other side of the bed snoring away. :confused: I sat there with an odd feeling I couldn't understand and looked at the clock, it said 10:02pm. I just couldn't shake what I know I felt and had not dreamt.

I got up to get a water and sat on my couch for about 45 mins trying to rationalize what I felt, when my phone rang. It was my Mom and she said, "Em, can you come to the house, Gram passed away about 45 mins ago. She was sitting in her rocking chair around 10pm, said to my Grampa, "Al, I love you, please hold my hand, I'm leaving now", he took her hand confused, and she closed her eyes and passed away". :scrying: OMG! She came to me while I slept, her final goodbye and kissed me before she moved on. I told my Dad and my Grampa and they both started to cry, as I was her favorite and it comforted them very much. For me, I'll be honest, I was afraid to look in the mirror and see her looking back at me for days. Really. I think I would have had a heart attack myself!

Later on, I took the rocking chair she died in, for when I had my baby. Everyone was too freaked out to sit in it or touch it, but I wasn't. When I had my Son, it was not a girl like she thought, I would rock him in that chair and I felt her there with me. Many times when I was sooo tired doing night feedings, I felt my hair being stroked and such a sense of calm. A few times, I'd see that chair rocking on its own while my son slept. I knew she was there watching over her 1st Great Grandchild and I would see it and say, "Hi Gram, he's beautiful isn't he"? I still when in distress or stressed out, talk to her. I feel her there always. I'll sit in her rocking chair and talk to her. I always feel better afterward and somehow the troubles I had, I found a way to work through them after my "session" with Gram.

Now my Grampa, he didn't do well after she passed. She was his life, being married well over 50 yrs. He would cry every night for her. He replaced every name in his bible with her name, painstakenly handwritting it in! I don't know why, but he did. It gave him comfort. He had developed Alzheimer's and would call only *ME* by my Grams name everytime he saw me, he said, "I see you there". Later on, he developed pneumonia, and lapsed into a coma, and was not given long to live. We would visit him and I can't explain how he looked. It was just not him anymore. He was a shell of a person, who did not come out of his coma. My Dad and I were with him one night, I was talking to him, hoping he heard me when I looked upward and saw a flash of light. I asked my Dad if he saw it and he just looked at me stunned. I knew my Gram had come to take him home. We both took his hand and I said, "Grampa, its okay, take Grams hand now, she's here waiting" and my Dad said, "Its okay Dad, go to Mom now, let go, we love you". No lie, in a coma, unresponsive, he sat straight up in the bed(scared me, I didn't expect that, he was in a coma after all), extended his right arm and hand upward towards the ceiling as if reaching for something, lied back down and he was gone. :scrying: He took her hand.

I have many more experiences I could post about, even from family pets that have gone to other experiences I have witnessed, but didn't want my 1st post to be too long, as it is already! :wink2: Sorry. Just sharing.

Emilee

WOW...! This is the first post that actually gave me the chills! (Not in a "scary" way...) Thank you for sharing your stories!!

I worked in a nursing home for 2 years and had a few experiences during the night shift. I had probably been there for 5 or 6 months before seeing/feeling anything (heard lots of stories though)...it was about 3am and I was going from room to room emptying water pitchers and picking up misc dirty laundry left over from the evening shift. I always snuck into the rooms without turning on any lights so that I wouldn't disturb anyone as they slept. I went into one of the resident's bathrooms, grabbed a couple washcloths, and as I dumped the water into the sink, I got a chill. I looked up into the mirror to see if the window behind me was open...and there was a man's "face" just to the left of mine in the reflection. I bolted outa that room and up to the well-lit nurses station. Needless to say, from then on when emptying pitchers at night, the bathroom light was on BEFORE I stepped foot inside...especially that room.

I also had an experience at a house I lived in for a few years. My first night there I was sitting on my bed and the shower in the master bathroom turned on by itself. I didn't really think much about it at that time...I just got up to shut it off and as soon as I got to the door, it shut off. That's the only time it did that...but there were a few nights that the bathroom light turned off and on for an hour...not to mention LOTS of "seeing things out of the corner of my eye". There were also a few times while doing dishes that it felt like someone was tugging on my clothes...or playing with my hair. My mom and I believe it could've been our neighbor, my mom's best friend for many years, who died in my mom's arms a few years earlier. OH...lol...we also believe she "pushed" my mom's ex out of a tree...breaking his arm. :rotfl:

Keep the stories coming...they're so much fun!!

I work in a LTC facility, and the strange things always happen on the night shift (around 3 a.m.)! I had a couple instances where two residents claimed that a little girl had just been in their room. They became very distraught when I told them that I didn't know what they were talking about. A few days after they had seen the little girl both women passed away. I still don't know what it could have been. Maybe it was just coincidence.

And another time I had a hospice patient that wanted coffee in the middle of the night. He looked around his room and said "How about you guys...do you want any?" He then looked at me and said "They all want coffee too". I got out of there pretty fast! But it sure makes me wonder what the residents see near their time of death!!

This wouldn't happen to be a ltc facility in Wyoming...would it???? Darn near identical story to where I used to work... :chair:

I work in a Nursing Home and I have heard several people tell stories about hearing noises and seeing strange things. One particular story that sticks out in my mind is the a few nights after a lady had passed away, that the call light was on. The room was currently empty, but the nurse thought that the call light might have somehow fallen in the floor or that another confused resident might have wondered in the room and pushed the button-The nurse then went down the hall and was going to go into the room, but she said that she could not get the door open. She said that it was like something was up against the door. And she said that she heard strange noises that sounded like the windows were opening and closing. I really don't believe in things like this and I have personally never seen any thing odd happen, but maybe someday I will.

The best I have heard is from a nurse who said that one night she was floated to oncology at the hospital she used to work at. She was given a patient who was passing away and had been unconscious for several days. At one point during the night the nurse went into the room and the patient was at the top of the bed and looked at her and said, "don't let them take me!", the nurse was freaked out and asked her who was going to take her and she said that black thing up there and pointed up in the air. This patient died within minutes.

Come on now share your stories, I know you have seen and heard freaky things.

Specializes in Med/Surg, Hospice.

Okay, I have one too. But it's not really a ghost story. It's more of a God story.

When my younger sister's marriage ended, she and her pre-school age son moved back home to live with our mom and dad. It was a difficult time. Jane was angry that life had not turned out as she had hoped, and she was under a great deal of stress being a single working mom. Adam was deeply affected by this change in his life. There was so much sadness and confusion in his young heart. We all feared that he was depressed. He was afraid to sleep alone, and my dad often lay in bed with him until he fell asleep. Both Jane and Adam started seeing a family therapist to help them deal with their pain.

One day, Jane was in the shower while Adam played in the house. Mom (Adam's grandma) was in the garage doing laundry. While in the shower, Jane heard a distinct voice urgently tell her to scream her son's name. She immediately did. She screamed out "Adam" at the top of her lungs. My mother heard the scream from the garage (it was attached to the house), and ran into the house to find Adam hanging by his neck from the stair rail. He had tied the sash of his little bathrobe around his neck, tied the other end to the bannister, and had climbed over the railing.

Mom got him down, removed the sash, and found that he was still breathing. His neck had burn marks from the sash, a visual reminder to us of how close we had come to losing our precious boy.

Jane says she knows that God warned her that day and saved her son's life. On at least two occasions following this incident she saw what she believed to be an angel in the house and when Adam told her that he had seen something in the house that frightened him, he gave the exact same description.

Jane is remarried now to a wonderful man. Adam is all grown up and learning how to drive. We believe that God sent extra protection to that little family during a time when they needed it most.

Sorry, not exactly a ghost story but a death story. I had seen death before in hospitals and nursing homes but somehow I just didn't really seem to grasp in spiritual terms what it all seemed to mean. I was bothered by the fact that this great mystifying event occured all around me but I was just too young and dumfounded to even comprehend even a little bit of what it all meant. In my mid twenties I took a private duty job where I was able, (for the first time) to really slow things down, and assist a dear lady patient during her transition to the next world. My patient had been comatose for a week and when I came on duty that afternoon I received report that all the signs were there that she would not be around much longer. I held her hand and read from the bible and talked to her that night and encouraged her to go on. Several hours went by and she finally awoke from the coma and looked directly in my eyes while she took her last breath. From my heart, I felt she was telling me she was on the other side and she was alright. There really aren't any words to express what I felt right at that moment. It felt like every cell in my body was transfixed by something that was so profoundly spiritual. Quite frankly, it turned my life around and got me started on a life of studying holistic and alternative healing. I think of her from time to time, because it was a defining moment in my lifes' path.

P.S.The thought has crossed my mind that maybe she only looked at me in her last moments to tell me I had spinach between my teeth :chuckle

Specializes in LTC, hospital, office.

wow-I have literally spend all day (minus a few hours to do actual school work) reading this entire thread. How amazing these stories are, from the downright scary to the most heartfelt stories. I know I have a few stories to share. Though..I must give my eyes :bugeyes: a break for now, I will post some later for sure though!

LPNtoRN:

If I was witness to that I wouldn't be alive now. I would have literally $h*t myself to death. My sphincter blown right out my behind, giving one last merry toot as it blew in the wind.

Thank you LPNtoRN, I still laugh myself silly every time I read this. So funny!!! :rotfl:

this also happens at a ltc facility in cleve ohio area.............

Thanks for sharing all these stories!!

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I work in a 9 bed ccu that we night shift nurses swear is haunted!! I personally have seen figures standing in doorways late at night. Blinds in pt's windows go up by themselves, callbells come on when room is unoccupied. One night, another nurse and myself were giving a bath when the tv starting flipping through all the channels. The remote for the tv was behind her on a stand. Another time she was giving a bath by herself to a t/v, sedated and restrained pt. She was down on her haunches tying his restraint when she felt someone or something run their fingers through her hair. The pt was on 100mcg/kg of diprivan so it was not him and there was not anyone with her in the room. The scariest one is one night we admitted a pt into room 9. After we had gottn her into bed, she looked at the wall in front of her and asked what was on the wall. We looked and here was bright red blood running down the wall. Needless to say we checked ourselves, the pt and the er personnel had not left the floor and no one had a fresh cut or open area on them. Well, the week before a young lady had died in that room. She came in to the hospital c/o abd pain. She ended having a upper endo and perfed someting. She had projectile vomited blood all over that wall and floor. It was horrible. the nurses on that night said it looked like a slaughterhouse. I still get chills just thinking about it!!!

I too worked in a CCU in the midwest. The first time I met our ghost was actually when I had just started on the IMCU when one night the ICCU transfered a patient to me. Shortly after his arrival he beagn talking about "the man" the"man in the long black robe" who had followed him from ICCU and that he "wasn't going to get me" :confused: So, I decided to find out on just why they had moved him so rapidly to the floor....Well the story goes whoever sees the man in the "Long Black Robe" dies. :eek: Apparently he decided to follow my patient to IMCU and the patinet was not going to let him get him! He refused to stay in his room so I finally gave up....2 doors down we had an unexpected Cardiac Arrest on a young patient who died....We came out out from the Code and low and behold My patient had gone to bed. I was shocked so I actually woke him up and I asked why he had finally gone to bed and he said......"It's Okay now He's gone" Well, Many years later and many "sightings" I was caring for an elderly lady when she suddenly said "that patient over there must be very ill I will pray for them" I was suprised as the patient was a 52yo "stable plasty" so I asked her what made her say that. She replied that "that priest in the long black robe has been ther all day so I thought they were dying so I'll pray for them too" The patient coded and died by the end of that shift!

Specializes in acute care and geriatric.
:p :p In one facility where I worked, We had a patient who enjoyed riding the elevators all night and would go up and down stopping on each floor to see what the nurse at the desk was doing ( the desk was facing the elevator) After she died the night staff reported seeing the elevators go up and down stopping each floor as if she were still riding..... creepy HUH?!!:p :p
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