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...

I'm not entirely sure how it happened. My grandmother was hit twice. I think that the driver (a 16 y.o. female) was distracted that she hit them once, my grandmother was actually able to get up after the first hit and went to aid my grandfather when the driver swerved and somehow hit them both again. It doesn't make sense, I know, but they were hit twice. :bluecry1:

Was she ever charged with vehicular manslaughter?

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
in august of 1998, the end was near for him. my mother and aunt are with him. they start talking in the living room while hospice was there for a visit. they said to each other that it was 10 years ago today that my grandmother died. my grandfather had lost all sense of time and my aunt goes in and tells him, "it was 10 years ago today that mom died." he then quietly passed away. it was as if he was waiting for the anniversary of my grandmother's death so he could go join her. it was ok for him to go.

you know, i think a lot of folks wait to die until someone "gives them permission" to do so. years ago, when i was working in eastern washington state, i had a patient who had been on vacation in western montana when he arrested in the middle of the night. he was down for awhile, i guess. he was airlifted to our hospital. i got rather close to this man's family -- wife, sons, step-sons, daughters-in-law (or were they step-daughters-in-law?) it was a lovely family.

i think you can tell a lot about a comatose patient by what their family is like. but that's an issue to be taken up in another thread..

the patient wasn't quite brain dead. if he were, it would have been easier. he wasn't waking up, and neuro saw no hope for a meaningful recovery. his kidneys failed, and renal got involved. his wonderful family was supportive of each other, and took turns sitting at the bedside, reading to and talking to dad. meanwhile, his organs were failing and his family was being run into the ground by the ordeal. the time came when one of the sons approached me about letting dad go. a family meeting ensued, and dad was made a dnr. after a couple more days, the family decided to withdraw care. and still dad hung on. his wife and two sons were in the room one day when i was caring for dad.

"how long can this go on?" they asked me, in anguish. i had no answer for them. "but," i told them, "sometimes i think people hang on because of their families. they don't want to leave you, or they're afraid they have to stay to protect you. maybe if you tell him that you'll be ok without him, and that you're letting him go he'll be able to leave."

tearfully, the family told dad what a wonderful husband and father and step-father he'd always been, and how much they loved him. then they gave him permission to go to god. and just like that, his breathing eased and he passed. the family was so grateful to me for taking such care of dad, and of them. and i've never forgotten that family. i feel as if i witnessed a miracle.

ruby

My creepiest and scariest ghost story for me happened about a year ago. It really was more of a posession than a ghost story. I was helping another nurse with a patient that had lived a very hard life. It had numerous things going on with him from cardiac to renal failure. You name it, he had it going on. This man was very much afraid to die. Every time his heart monitor beeped, he would just go into a rage screaming, "Don't let me die! Don't let me die!" The other nurse and I found out why he didn't want to die. About 0200 his cardiac monitor starts alarming V-Tach. We both rush into the room. I am pulling the crash cart behing me. When I get to the room, the other nurse is completely white. This man was sitting about 2 inches above the bed and was laughing. His whole look completely changed. His eyes just had a look of pure evil on them and he had this evil smile on his face. He laughed at us and said, " You stupid b****es aren't going to let me die will you?" and he laughed again. We were kinda frozen. I did reach up and hit the Code Blue button and when I did the man went into V-fib. He crashed back onto the bed. We started coding him, but after 20 minutes it was called. 5 minutes after the code was called several of the code team is in the room cleaning up when this man sits straight up in the bed and says, " You let him die. Too bad." and then begins laughing. The man collapsed back to the bed. We heard a horrible, agonizing scream ( actually every patient in the unit that night commented on the scream), and then you could hear "don't let me die" being whispered throughout the unit. Everyone of the nurses that night was pale and scared. No body went anywhere by themselves. By morning the whispers of "don't let me die" were gone. The night shift nurses had a prayer service in the break room before we left for home and then we all had nightmares for weeks.[/quote/]

OMG!!!

:eek: :uhoh3:

I would have had nightmares for YEARS after seeing that! It probably would have scared me into going to church every sunday for the rest of my life! This has to be the scariest story I have ever heard in my life!!

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.

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:

Cindy

Was she ever charged with vehicular manslaughter?

Yes, the 16 y.o. was charged with 1 count of vehicular manslaughter and did not serve jail time.

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:

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