What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

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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...

No jail, huh? That's a darn shame. :angryfire

I'm sorry for your loss.

We all have accidents. This is an inexpirienced 16 y.o. girl who I am sure had no intention of hurting anyone when she got in the car that day. Can you imagine how you would feel if a momentary lapse in judgement had such long lasting results.

futuregaspasser, I love your name. You can call me eternalgaspasser.

I think that locker room needs an exorcism, too. That is very scary. 

Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.

My very dear friend, Denny, died in a motorcycle accident. We had dated briefly and had parted on great terms. I had moved out of town, but when we would see each other he would pick me up, swing me around and ask if I was getting treated right. All during his funeral, I kept asking mutual friends, did he know how much I loved him? How much he meant to me, even though we weren't together? Yes, they all reassured me, he knew. Well, after the funeral, I retreated to my safe spot, my grandparents house. The first night there, I had a dream that he and I were in an apartment building. The stairs went up to the apartment on the side of the building. I was sitting on Denny's lap, kissing him and all of a sudden our friend Donald comes bursting in. What are you guys doing, the place is on FIRE, get out! So I jumped up and ran out the door, down the first flight of steps and turn around to tell Denny something. He isn't behind me, so I go back up to the apartment and it is filled with smoke by that point. I started hollaring out, Den, Where are you? Come on, we gotta get out of here! So I run back out, only this time there are no steps going to the ground, just steps going up. I started up the steps and saw him on a bridge leaning over watching everyone run out of the building. I said to him, Denny, what are you doing, we got to go, come on. He said, not me, I have to go somewhere else now, but its not your time yet. I said, where are you going, he kind of looked lost for a second and said, I don't know yet....Then I said, But Denny, you know I love you, right? He looked me right in the eye, smiled and said, Yes, I know. Then I woke up. Funny thing was, I couldn't move, AT ALL for about 10-15 seconds. I mean, I tried to get out of bed and my body was completely paralized. The sad thing is, the friend who came in to tell us the building was on fire died himself six years later in a car accident.

I have also had a dream of my dh's grandmother, whom I never met. She died a few years before he and I met. I had a dream I was sitting at a kitchen table and she was serving me tea, thanking me for taking such good care of her grandson. I never said anything to him, until one year we were at his cousin's for a Christmas party and I brought it up. I described the kitchen table and the cupboards and where the basement door was and they all looked at me in shock, told me I had described their grandmother's kitchen perfectly.

The last experience I had was shortly after my grandfather had died. He was an expert carpenter and I was working on some wood trim at my house. I was thinking, boy, I should call Papa, then it occurred to me that I couldn't. A few days later, I got a very strong whiff of Cherry Pipe tobacco (what he use to smoke) in my dining room. I stopped short and said, OH, Hi Papa, how are you doing today? The smell was gone in an instant. I tell him all the time to come visit me, but not to let me see him because it would scare the begeeses out of me, LMAO.

My dh swears our house is haunted. Things get moved all the time and noises can be heard. Once, when my son was a baby the screen was moved out of the window and placed very neatly by his crib. Dh called me at work all shook up, he is a complete and total skeptic. I said, are you sure someone wasn't trying to break in? He said, no, I was outside when he was napping and when I came into the house I went right upstairs!

As far as nursing ghost stories, the only one I can think of is the one elevator at work. We have 7 of them beside each other, but only the one does this. And not always....I work on the 6th floor. Sometimes, I will get in on 1 and push the 6 button, it will take me up to 5 stop then go back down to 1. The doors don't open, it just stops and goes back down. When it happens with families in there, I just smile and say, yep, this is the haunted elevator. I think they think I am kidding :p

I know I've already made a post on this topic, but have had a strange experience since that I feel like sharing.

I currently work in a private rest home for the elderly while I am training to be an RN.

For the last 7 months I have been the HCA for my best friends grandmother (Friends is a plural as they are identical twins... the three of us have been very good friends for over 10 years).

I had not met my friends grandmother before she became a patient, but we spent alot of time talking about her grand children.. my friends.

I formed quite a close relationship with this lady, and she was a wonderful woman.

Last Friday night I dreamt in which a young man came to me and said that my friends grandmother would be joining him soon, and thanked me for looking after her. The dream was an incredibly realistic and vivid dream, and I was actually unable to sleep for the rest of the night, thinking about it.

I rang work first thing in the morning, and checked to see that this lady was okay. She was apparently fine, and I dismissed my dream as a just that, a dream.

I had a second dream on Saturday night, in which the young man told me that I should warn my friends so they could say their good-byes.

Again I rang first thing in the morning, and she was fine.

At work on Sunday night, I noticed that this lady was not in a good way. She was not active at all ( and had previously required minimal help with her cares) and was lying in bed, breathing in short shallow, very wet breaths.

I took her hand and looked into her face. At that moment, I knew that the dreams should not have been dismissed. Before I finished my shift at 9pm, I made a last trip into her room. I felt very strongly that this would be the last time that I saw her, even though I have seen many patients bounce back from being unwell. I again took her hand, and told said my goodbyes. I told her that I was very grateful that she was a part of giving me two of the best friends I am ever likely to have, and that she had made a special impact on me.

My friends grandmother passed away at 9.30 that night.

I had another dream that night in which the young man and a young woman approached me holding hands. The young man laughed at me and told me I should have listened when he warned me about the ladies passing.

The young woman told me that I shouldnt listen to him, and that she was grateful for the company that I gave her in the time in the home, and that she was also grateful that I had helped her grandchildren through difficult periods.

She then winked, and said ' your welcome'.

I received the phone call to say that she had died the next day, and while going through some old photos with my friends, I discovered a photo of the young couple in my dream... happy and holding hands.

wow that is cool

:roll

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.

That has to be the scariest story I have ever heard.

:roll :rotfl: :yelclap: :yeah: :bugeyes: :bow: Merry toot!!!

One Last Goodbye

A few weeks later, I was talking with the daughter of the patient who had passed away in the room and she smiled at me and said that it was probably her father coming back to tell his favorite nurse goodbye one last time.

Thank you for this lovely "ghost story." I have a few of them myself, nothing malevolent or scary about them, but at the time they make you wonder.

I'll get them down when I am finished reading this fascinating thread.

Thanks for the links.

I have enjoyed all of these stories so much...........

:chair:

I've worked in several nursing homes since 1997, so I've had plenty of run-ins with restless spirits.

At this one nursing home, there were three different wings. North, East and West. West wing was the "heavy" hall. Mostly tube-feeders and total care. East was the Medicare/short-term rehab wing. Then there was North. North had a pretty ecclectic mix of patients of differing levels of acuity. There was a short hall and a long hall. However, to the back of North wing, there was a long hall that had about ten private rooms, a day room on one end and a small dining room on the other end. The residents back on this hall (called 400 hall) were all ambulatory and even a few "wanderers".

Now, I generally worked from 3-11, but on this particular night, the 11-7 girl was sick so I was asked to stay. As I was off the next night, I agreed. Since I was working a double, I was given the assignment on 400 hall. It was an easy assignment as most of the residents were continent and the few that weren't were really light weight.

Anyhow, I was sitting in the dining room with the lights off, charting by the dimmed hall lights when I caught something out of the corner of my eye moving down the hall. Thinking it was one of my "wanderers", I looked up and saw what to this day I still believe was a toddler on a tricycle.

Let me tell you now, I lost it. The ADL book went flying and I skittered up the short hallway to the nurse's station. I relayed my story to the charge nurse and she just sort of chuckled at my expression and explained that one of the residents that had passed away years ago had a grandson that was killed by the back tires of her car. He was in the driveway and she didn't see him and backed right over him. The night the lady died, she was calling out "Tyler, oh my baby Tyler. Nana's coming.". Then she passed.

Everyone has come to the conclusion that the toddler on the tricycle still haunts that hall, looking for his grandma.

Either way, I never worked another 11-7 on 400 hall.

That one is very sad. Must have made your hear jump in your throat. But it's still very sad. It's hard to see the sad stories of spirits looking for things. Especially, a young spirit. I used to work in the palliative unit of an old hospital. It used to have a pediatrics unit down the hall. Across the street used to be a children's orphanage/hospital. Sometimes, the patients would see the children playing in the halls and outside behind the hospital.

I also work in a LTC facility. One of the residents I commented once that she looked like my mother. My mother died suddenly of a stroke. I don't know why I said it. But she did look like my mother. Anyway, over a period of time, the resident deteriorated from a very bad infection on her knee and foot. The call bell system at the LTC I work at uses buttons. When the resident needs help, they push the button that hangs from a necklace around their neck. At bed time, they put it wherever they need it. She was always in pain and her dressings needed to be changed frequently. I enjoyed my time changing her dressings, I'd give her pain med before, and she'd listen to me gab while I changed the dressing. Long story short, I got attached then, she had to be sent to the hospital. Well, I happened to be working on the same unit that she was admitted to. When she was sent to the hospital, her call bell was hanging on a hook in her room. Two months later, she died in the hospital. I was on the night shift at the LTC facility the night she died. Her call bell kept going off many many many times that night just like she were back from the hospital!!

How does one explain that one? I mean just about the call bell. What does one do when a patient or resident dies? I try not to get emotionally attached but sometimes, it's way too hard.

Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.

How does one explain that one? I mean just about the call bell. What does one do when a patient or resident dies? I try not to get emotionally attached but sometimes, it's way too hard.

user_offline.gif report.gif The day I stop getting emotionally attached to my patients is the day I get out of nursing. It is part of what makes me so good at what I do, I love them all.

user_offline.gif report.gif The day I stop getting emotionally attached to my patients is the day I get out of nursing. It is part of what makes me so good at what I do, I love them all.

Good. As a patient, I want nurses who REALLY care about me. And in my thought you can not REALLY care without getting emotionally attatached

Specializes in everywhere.

I just had to bump this thread to the top again. I love this thread, keep them coming!

I was working in the nicu when we had a threat of a tornado. Some Nurses got pulled to go to a sister hospital in town to assist in the disaster plan. When all was over one of the nurses returned with this story: She was assissting the nurses in giving some meds before pulling all into the hallways. Every pt she went to said they already had their meds from that nice nurse in the white uniform and hat. She realized after she left that its been awhile since a nurse has worn a hat. That story revealed the urban ledgen of Nurse Betty. Story goes she had an affair with a married md, became pregnant then agreed to allow him to perform an abortion on her on the 2nd floor OR room.She died and he went to jail. She never left the hospital and was seen frequently. The local newspaper would do an article of her every year around halloween on her sightings. The hospital has since been replaced with college dorms. Hmmmm i wonder if any students have seen her?[/QUO

Wow, a ghost that can physically give meds, that's pretty good!

Hey, do you think you can send her my way to pass some of my meds??? :)

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