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 miss this and am bringing it back

I absolutely love this thread. Keep 'em coming.

Specializes in too many to remember.
We had a resident that was ill and she told the nurse that she would die on July 4th, this has been a few years back, well July 4th came and they got her up for Breakfast then lunch and then finally at supper time she slumped over in her chair and when they checked sure enough she was dead. Freaky!

I had a lady in the NH tell all the staff when she was lucid that she would die on Christmas day. I was a BRAND NEW LPN and worked night shift and sure enough, on 1200 rounds, just after midnight Christmas day, she expired.

I used to work at a NH where this ornery old guy used to get in his wheelchair and tool down the hall and open the exit door at the end of hall 2. After his passing, the alarm to that door would often go off for no reason, and we knew it was Fred doing it. We just said, "Fred's checking the door!"

I also took care of a lady that had a massive stroke and her family was keeping a bedside vigil. Her breathing changed and just as she passed, two geese flew by her window. I took it as God and her spirit were now flying off together to heaven.

The most touching story I have is of my grandma-in-law when she was near death. We went and saw her one Saturday, and my husband and his cousin couldn't bear to see MawMaw this way. I sat with her and through tears told her that we would be okay here on Earth, that it was okay to go to Heaven and not hurt anymore, to go be with Pops (her husband). My husband and I both knew this would be the last time we would see her. Sunday morning we got the call that she had died. We know she died at peace. Upon talking to my mother in law, she let me know of a dream she had that night. Pops was sitting at her bedside holding her hand. Not a word was spoken. MawMaw was ready to go.

And what always gets me is when I get email and when there is a "T" or "t" and it is shown as a Cross, I smile. God is good.

Harleygirl

Specializes in LTC.

I work on a Memory Care Unit in assisted living, and recently we had a transfer a resident into a nursing home. Wednesday night they startted getting calls from his empty apartment. These calls continued through most of Thursday, we were notified that he had died Thursday evening.

Now another aide on the unit was telling me that she kept hearing things out of his empty apartment. Bumps, thumps, dragging noises. I just kind of shrugged her off. Then middle of Saturday night we hear a loud crash, it sounded like someone went down, walker and all. My co-worker and I jolt up from the desk and start checking apartments, nothing is disturbed and all residents are tucked nicely away in their beds. We both poke our heads in the residents old apartment. It was the general area the noise came from. Nothing.

Sunday night I'm sitting at the desk and hear a thump on the wall behind me. The other side of the wall is the resident's old bathroom. Then early Monday morning as we were giving report to dayshift, we hear another crash, same as the previous. The co-worker I was working with was the same one the first time I heard the crash, we both just mumble something about the resident.

This story is hearsay but comes from a very reliable source. Source is a very responsible, smart nursing supervisor who I have never known to lie.

One night she was working ER when paramedics brought in a 30-ish pt. who was coding. This nurse "Mary" and the doctors and other nurses worked on the pt. for 45 mins. before dr. called it. Mary went to get a clean gown and other supplies and went back to the room after about 10 mins. She cleaned him up and was in the room finishing charting the code, etc. when the deceased pt. sat up in bed and shouted "Beware! The gates of hell have opened!" As soon as he said this he fell back on the bed. She went to him to check for a pulse and of course there wasn't one. The whole ER heard this and came running.

This is charted so I really doubt she's lying about this one.

Where was this Catholic hospital where the rose petals appeared? To experience something like that would almost justify changing my career ambitions to work L&D. Who could doubt God or the afterlife after experiencing something like that? For those like myself who want to believe in an afterlife, but just can't quite get over the skeptical hump, somthing like what you describe could be life changing.

Having roses appear from nowhere and smelling roses can be contributed to St. Therese of Lisieux, a Catholic nun from France who died very young. I cannot remember exactly what she is the patron saint of but it involves something along the line of hopeless causes or the sick or dying. Having roses appear or smelling roses is a good sign, although a bit unsettling.

Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

This thread is awesome.

Specializes in CCU,SICU,CVICU,Burn Unit.

This is not really a ghost story, but it made me wonder. I was working at a small hospital in an intensive care unit around 1991. My life was a roller coaster. I was divorced with 2 girls and doing the LPN-RN track. I spent all my time in prayer. On this day I was taking care of this elderly lady, diagnosed with encephalapathy. She was very out of it. She would yell for the boys underwear out of her window, go get the dog out of the flowers, and help me. On this day I was standing at the side of her bed to start her bath when she looked at me in the eye and calmly said " you will achieve every thing you want in life and all your prayers will come true." then she started to yell about the boys underwear and thrash. I was shocked since this was the first time I had seen this lady,and the nurse in the room with me never heard her speak except to yell.

In a LTC facility one of my very favorite patients died. She was a hopeless Paranoid Schizophrenic. She coded, we worked her until Phoenix Fire got there and they continued to work her.

I knew the guys that came and I was shaking and crying. I asked them if she was dead. One of the guys put his arm around me and said, "M, she's not breathing on her own." I said that I knew that, was she dead??? He looked at the other guys kinda funny and said, "Well, M. Her heart isn't beating on its own either." I said I KNOW THAT! Is she dead???

I knew she was, I just needed to hear it. I had been there a long time and I knew those guys and they knew I didn't get this upset each time someone died. Finally Craig told me that yes, she was dead. But they started CPR so they had to follow it through and have her pronounced at the hospital. Then I became really upset, just beside myself.

This patient was so severely mentally ill that she used to frighten the ever-loving daylights out of me. Over time I came to understand her and I got to know her. She quickly became a favorite and if anyone ever taught me about true mental illness, this lady did. I had a great deal of respect for her.

A couple of months after this incident we had a lady fall and likely break her arm. Called paramedics and Craig came out. Happens to be the same room my deceased patient was in. As they were assessing her the body board they had laying up against the closet slid and went right through the window.

Without batting an eye I said, "Oh M! Quit it!" "M" was my patient. Craig looked at me for the longest time and I did my best to keep a straight face. His eyes became huge and he was trying to figure out if this was for real or not. I calmly explained that ever since M died she plays these tricks and it's just getting old.

His eyes got bigger and bigger and then he grinned and said I was kidding, right? I just looked at him and asked who just pushed the board through our window? Was anyone standing there?

Wow, talk about a scoop and run! They scooped this little lady up and RAN out the door. LOL I thought it was priceless.

I never did tell them it was all bull. But you know, nurses have a sense of humor that not everyone relates to. Gotta do what ya gotta do to deal.

I have to read a few more of these stories before I can tell a couple of my real stories.

\but from experience I've learned that when a pt tells you they're going to die...they usually do...and if they start talking to dead family members...they usually die...it's like the family members have come to take them.....

Isn't THAT the truth! Shoot, old folks can tell you the day they are going to die. (On a Friday they'll say that on Tuesday they will become ill and die that day, sure enough...)

The rose petals just started floating down from the ceiling. It was like someone was just showering the room with them. This has happened several times over the years.

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.

Holy crap that is scary!!!!

Awww...c'mon Bipley, tell us your stories!

I was working as an aide at the local hospital and we had one patient who was a 40ish male dying of liver failure. He was a jokester and he would do things like yelp when you listened to his chest and then grin and say "just kidding". Anyway, after he passed away a nurse and I were changing the bed of a patient and after we were done we made sure it was locked. I hit the brake and pushed against the bed and it wouldn't move. Well, the patient was not able to get out of bed and no one else had been in since we came in, but when I came back a couple of minutes later for vital signs, I leaned against the bed and it skidded across the floor. This happened a couple more times during the shift, and each time I made SURE that the bed was locked. It turns out that this room was the one where the liver patient had died.......I have a thing now about checking and rechecking the brakes on the beds! :rolleyes:

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