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...

We have a white figure that has been seen in the medicine room, sometimes the carts are moved down the hall while you are in a room giving meds, etc. One of the male CNAs reported seeing a very tall black figure going from room to room several times. We have all seen balls of light floating around. From what we have been able to gather from old pictures of the property that the nursing home is on there was a mobile home park at one end and a cemetary at the other end of the building. Everyone has seen a little boy walking around but the freakiest part was when they saw wet childrens foot prints coming down the hall and followed them to the wall and there were footprints in the snow outside that came right to that place in the wall.

Specializes in Critical Care.

I know several. I'll share more later if there is any interest:

We had a black girl, about 10 in ICU that was severely injured in a car accident. Lots of brain damage. She didn't die there but was moved to another facility after weeks and weeks.

After that, I know of 3 older black males, in their 50's, that, if they were even mildly sedated, would ask about the little black girl with the ribbon in her hair who was sitting at the foot of their beds.

One guy said, "she asked me how I was doing, and then got up and walked that way" while he was pointing towards the 2nd floor window. He paused, a wide-eyed look came over his face, and then he said, 'But I guess she really couldn't have left the room that way, huh?"

Personally, I think she was taking care of grandfatherly figures.

I worked in an ICU where a prisoner convicted of murder died in ICU 1 - and nobody would put a patient in that room after that cause the air was too heavy and the room was too spooky and 'dark'. It was so bad (nurses would refuse to put patients in the room even if it was the last available bed; they'd triage out a patient before they'd trust putting a patient in that bed 1), that the hospital eventually closed down the room and knocked out a wall to make it a separate entrance into the unit.

I used to collect ghost stories: I know several.

~faith

Timothy.

Specializes in Telemetry, ICU, Resource Pool, Dialysis.

You guys are freaking me out!! The only thing I've seen is pretty tame. I went in to set up a room for a new patient. I turned off the screensaver on the monitor, and it was showing a resp rate of 6, big, deep breaths, then shallow ones - like cheyne stokes. I thought maybe the leads were swinging on the floor, but they were curled up on the shelf without any electrodes on them, like they always are. It wasn't picking up telemetry, because our tele only transmits cardiac rhythms. The pattern didn't stop until we put the new patient on the monitor. Never saw it again. I've never seen any ghosts or other stuff, though. I'd probably pee myself.

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?

Specializes in Critical Care.

We had a patient, chronic CHFer, always on the call button, hated being on fluid restrictions. you know the type: the nurses have to take turns during the shift answering the call button so the primary can actually do other work.

And this was a frequent flier cause he was very chronic, very borderline, and the hospital was the only place he wouldn't fluid overload.

I work 7p-7a. He died about 8pm. Oh the look on his face, like, "how could you let me die!" - Like it was our fault.

Anyway, family came and gone by 9pm, funeral home gone at 930pm.

About 10pm, the call button starts going off. I was there - call button going off every 5 minutes.

One of the nurses was a very spiritual girl. At about 2am, after like 4 HOURS OF THIS, nurse Mary snaps, 'Enough!'

She walks down to the room, and, practically screams into the empty room, "Mr X, you have died. You can't be in here bothering us anymore. Move along. In the name of Jesus, I'm exorcising you from this plane of existence. Go to the light and be happy!"

And I kid you not, the call button stopped going off then and there.

~faith,

Timothy.

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!!!

Specializes in Critical Care.

Not a spooky story but a lonely ghost.

One of the rooms, if it was being used regularly, fine. no problems. But, since it was a room at the end of the hall, it was used for 'storage' lots of times.

If a couple of weeks went by and there were no patients/activity in the room, the call light would start going off, 4-5 times a shift. But. If you went into the room and turned on the TV, the call light wouldn't go off anymore.

So, needless to say, when the room was being used for storage, the tv was always on w/ the volume down low.

~faith,

Timothy.

I don't know if this qualifies as a ghost story but here it is. I was taking care of a 12 year old with aplastic anemia. A week before she die, every day, at 12:15PM I would get a cold chill across the back of my neck and the hair would stand up. I mentioned it to the evening nurse, who was convinced she would die at that time. Several days later, her parents decided to cease all treatment. She lasped into a coma. At 12Noon, she woke, asked me to hold her up, said goodbye to her parents, grandparents and siblings. And die in my arms. It was 12:15PM.

Grannynurse

I was working in ICU before going to CRNA school. We had a male patient come in with an MI, he was admitted to room 15. He ended up having a carotid endartarectomy and eventually a CABG in about a week and a half. His CABG did not go well at all. He ended up with a coagulopathy and ended up bleeding and bleeding and dying...cardiovascular collapse. Anyway. A week later his brother was admitted to the hospital for an MI. He was admitted to room 14. We were able to do bedside EKGs from our monitors. Upon admission to the ICU we did our standard admission EKG...the name on the EKG came up being his dead brothers name, despite the admission information in the computer being accurately entered as the brother's name admitted that night.

My first cousin was a young minister visiting the bedside of a sweet, saintly woman who was terminal with lung cancer. Her bed was cranked up somewhat so she could breathe a little easier. She was in and out, pretty heavily medicated. He was at her bedside holding her hand and praying. She raises herself up, looks at the wall in front of the bed and says. "Oh Jesus, it's so beautiful, so beautiful" lays back down and passes. Sure made an impression on my cousin who went on to have a wonderful ministry.

Specializes in geri, med/surg, neuro critical care.

I work in a LTC facility, and within lies the legend of the little girl...many people have seen her; few have survived to tell about it...quite a few residents have asked me "who's that little girl?" and pointed to her...coincidentally, these people would be dead within 72 hours of seeing her.

Turns out, about 10 years ago, there was a fatal car accident in front of our LTC...the victim? A little girl, about 10 years old :eek:

~Lori

I was on break outside in a gazebo at a LTC facility with a CNA. The CNA pointed out a black cat on the roof of the facility and said, "Everytime that cat shows up on the roof, someone who's bed is near the cat...dies". Sure enough, later that shift, the lady who's room was under the cat did die. I told my teenage daughter about this, and it kind of gave her chills. We were looking out of our window and our own black cat jumped on the pickup truck and from there up to our roof. THAT gave both of us chills.

About twenty years ago, in a different LTC facility (before I was a nurse) I was going to assist the night nurse with vital signs. I told here I saw something white "floating" down the hall. She said it may have been a resident walking, I said "no, it was floating". About the area where I saw this, we had a linen cart covered with white and I assumed maybe that is really what I had seen. The first room we went into, of course, was near the "spot". As I was putting the BP cuff on the resident, the nurse said "never mind". I didn't get it, and continued to put on the cuff when the nurse said "she's dead, and I believe you saw her soul leaving". Well, being easily spooked, that job didn't last much longer.

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