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...

[Chad_KY_SRNA]

An agency nurse asked us if we would not laugh at her if she told us something weird and everyone told her that they wouldn't. She said that she walked out of a room from starting an IV line and saw a black figure going down the hallway, that same morning in six hours three residents died, coincidence?

[nurseklw72]

Here's a few stories...

A friend of mine who is also a nurse used to work in hospice. She told me about a patient that she cared for that was a very mean individual who was hateful to her family as well as the nurses who cared for her. As this woman was dying, she became very afraid and started yelling that she was burning! She screamed & wailed about burning right up until she died.

I used to work in an old hospital built in the 1930's. I worked on a med-surg unit. In room 7, the beds used to raise up & down by themselves. We called maintenance, who checked the beds out & said they were fine. While the beds were in the hall, they didn't move. Once they went back into room 7, they started moving again.

Our old facility has closed down and we have since moved into a new hospital. There is some rumor that the land was once a cemetary. The night before we moved into the new hospital, the fire alarms went off & it was discovered that the burners were turned on in the kitchen. No one had been in the kitchen that day. The first week of staying at the hospital, one patient said her window kept swinging open. The handle to open the window is difficult to turn & the patient was unable to get out of bed. There is a pet Cemetary nearby. Several patients have reported seeing cats & dogs in their rooms. Even my grandfather stayed there for a week & kept saying there was a big yellow cat in the corner.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Every hospital I've ever worked in has at least one ghost. I've never worked in a nursing home, but I hear from a friend who has that they have their ghosts as well.

Years ago -- and this will age me -- I worked at the old peter bent brigham hospital. We'd just moved into our brand new tower, and the old hospital was scheduled for demolition. Several coworkers wanted to walk through the old unit one last time . . . . As we walked past what had once been the large men's ward, we saw a couple of figures in what should have been a completely empty ward. One of my coworkers peeked in to investigate and immediately backed out, face as white as a blank order sheet. Of course I was curious then, so looked in myself. All I saw was two older men sitting on an old bed, chatting. My coworker explained : that was billy and larry (or moe and joe -- I've forgotten the names) they were frequent fliers in the ward. Both were royal pains in the patoot when they were alive -- which they weren't anymore. She said they'd been rumored to still be hanging around, but no one had actually seen them before!

[MultipurposeRN]

I just heard about the ghost nun who is still trying to pass meds. One of the docs told us the other morning that one night 2 separate patients saw the same woman in a long gray dress and veil w/ one of those med trays walk into their rooms. Guess she didn't end up giving any meds, but they thought she was a staff member passing out pills. Our hospital has several haunts, particularly in the OR.

[gr8rnpjt, RN]

This one is pretty creepy and it is one of the reasons I got out of the hospital and started working office case management. I worked many years on tele and I worked steady nights. I was constantly overtired, never felt quite rested. While waiting for my husband to get home (he worked steady 2nd shift, I worked steady nights) I was dozing on the couch, the kids were in bed. I was half in and out of consciousness when I felt a presence. Even though my eyes were closed tight, I "felt" the room turn red beyond my eyelilds. I started to hear the whispers of athousand souls in the room. The air was oppressive, and I tried to scream, though no sound came out. The whispers got louder and louder, though I could not tell what the souls were trying to say. When my husbands key turned in the door, the redness in the room vanished, the whispers instantly stopped, and I became wide awake, as though never asleep. I told my husband I felt it would be a bad night. Sure enough, in the room across the hall from the nurses station (you know the one, that is reserved for the sickest or the most unstable, so to be close when code is called) my coworkers patient strangled herself silently in her waist restraint. Her body was contorted, limbs contorted in unnatural ways, with her face smashed between the bedrail and the mattress. My coworker was distraught, having checked on her only 20 minutes prior. We called a code, and worked on her a back breaking 30 minutes, I did compressions, and I still remember the sound of a couple fo ribs cracking. In the end she was gone, and my coworker was beside herself. The next night the same scenario, I waited for my husband to come home, I drifted in and out of consciousness, the room turned red beyond my eyelids. and a thousand souls whispered tortured sounds into my ears, but I was unable to discern what they were saying. I opened my mouth to scream, nothing came out, I woke to the sound of the key in the door...That night I had agreed to switch sides with my coworker, having felt pity for her. The room across the hall was cleaned and in it was a new patient, a man in his 50's with moving chest pain...I was tired from the night before, my back still sore from the 30 minutes of doing compressions. I worked swiftly as I could getting in first rounds, checking frequently on my new friend across the hall with the moving chest pain. I was newly trained in telemetry, and felt concerned about the pain that moved across his chest, and down the left arm, then back up and down the right arm. Although I was new, I felt that I noted a subtle S-T depression on his rhythm strip. But a more seasoned tele nurse looked at the strip, and said it was nothing. I called the cardiologist, and though I didn't want to seem overly zealous, I told him about the moving chest pain, and what I felt to be a subtle change in the S-T segment. He ordered my patient maalox and tylenol, which I gave, then I was sidetracked by a patient whose rate suddenly went into the 150's. I got busy with his orders, and for a moment, forgot about my patient with the moving chest pain. Suddenly the unit clerk shouted at me in the still of the night down the hall, "Patti, go see your patient in 15, he is in V Tach!, as I raced to his room, she said, "NO! now he is in V fib!" I yelled over my shoulder, call a code! As I ran into his room, the hues changed from a soft yellow, to a definite red. I looked at my patient, as he sat up, and laid down, up and down up and down again and again, making these agonal sounds. He could not sit still. In the midst of this the code team came in. They all watched as this man sat up and laid down again and again. In awe, we watched as this man breathed his last earthly breath. As he laid down for the last time, they sprang into action, but too late. He died of a massive heart attack. A week later I was applying to every insurance company in town. I got my steady daylight weekends and holidays off. I make sure I get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I vow never to work nights again.

[pedi-RN]

I love these stories - keep them coming!

Holli

[Chad_KY_SRNA]

I was walking past the nurses station on one of our units just before breakfast time and saw this big black figure that was behind a chair raise up from about three feet tall to seven feet almost touching the ceiling and it was coming my way over the counter. I moved my butt on out there quickly, come to find out when I shared this story with the folks who had worked 11-7 the day before and one of them had seen a big black figure go by and they both heard it make some kind of mournful moan as it went down the ramp to the other unit. I nearly fell over when I found out I wasn't the only one seeing it that day. We both described exactly the same thing with even the same gait.

[schroeders_piano, RN]

I used to work in an old catholic hospital. Where the labor and delivery unit is located now, it used to be the convent for the nuns that worked at this hospital. One of the nuns died of natural causes years ago. This nun loved and raised numerous varieties of roses. Ever since the OB department was moved to this area, anytime a mother or baby is having difficulties you can smell the scent of roses throughout the whole unit. The OB nurses know to be prepared when they start smelling the scent of roses. If a mother or baby dies, the room suddenly fills with rose petals. It is one of the creepiest, but also loving things that happens. I was standing in a room one night when the baby died. The room filled with white and pink rose petals. The nurses and family was creeped out.

I worked at another hospital where you would see a nurse in the old white dress and cap walk down the hallway and smile at you. Then she would walk into a patient's room and apply wrist restraints. All the nurses knew her. It was just Mildred who died 60 years ago. You just had to follow her so you can take the wrist restraints off.

I do have other stories that are a lot creepier than these.

[pedi-RN]

schroeders_piano said:

I do have other stories that are a lot creepier than these.

Please share!

[jeepgirl, LPN, NP]

schroeders_piano said:

I used to work in an old catholic hospital. Where the labor and delivery unit is located now, it used to be the convent for the nuns that worked at this hospital. One of the nuns died of natural causes years ago. This nun loved and raised numerous varieties of roses. Ever since the OB department was moved to this area, anytime a mother or baby is having difficulties you can smell the scent of roses throughout the whole unit. The OB nurses know to be prepared when they start smelling the scent of roses. If a mother or baby dies, the room suddenly fills with rose petals. It is one of the creepiest, but also loving things that happens. I was standing in a room one night when the baby died. The room filled with white and pink rose petals. The nurses and family was creeped out.

I worked at another hospital where you would see a nurse in the old white dress and cap walk down the hallway and smile at you. Then she would walk into a patient's room and apply wrist restraints. All the nurses knew her. It was just Mildred who died 60 years ago. You just had to follow her so you can take the wrist restraints off.

I do have other stories that are a lot creepier than these.

LIke they just materialized out of thin air? I think we need to call the Vatican about that... that sounds more like a miracle than a ghost story.

[coot]

Chad_KY_SRNA said:

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.

A nurse who is a friend of mine told me a bout a patient she had that had been sick for a while and she had went in the patients room to get her vital signs and the pt was lifted off the bed just a few inches and she said that there was a black shadow that covered the room and as the pt died it was llike the shadow left the room and a very cold even spookey draft followed she says and I believe that u can tell a pt has either went to heaven or the devil him self has come to claim his soul. Nursing gives u a total different look on death and the higher power

[gr8rnpjt, RN]

I do have other stories that are a lot creepier than these.

That was a good one, please tell more!!