What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

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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...

on my current ward, haematology a exit lights flash on the ward flashers for a about half a day just before we have a really bad death or code. as soon as the code or death has happened the exit light stops flashing.

it's only happens on the really bad deaths and codes. it most of the time gives us a chance to over stock the arrest trolly just in time.

Not a ghost story, but really magical..........

Years ago I worked at an assisted living facility as an aide. One woman who lived there, "Verna", basically lived in the past all the time. She had been a school teacher and would sometimes correct our grammar, but otherwise she talked about the house where she used to live, and she didn't know how she had ended up in this place, and she just wanted to go "Back to Carmel", where she had lived 15 years ago, but she thought it was just yesterday.

She was ambulatory with a walker, and she was able to go to the bathroom with assistance, but one day she had an accident and wet her clothes. I was kneeling in front of her, changing her clothes, while she looked into space and talked about going to Carmel. Then all of a sudden, she touched me on the shoulder, looked me in the eyes and told me "Thank You. You girls are so wonderful. You do such an important job." That was the only time I had ever seen her that lucid, and it never happened again. This was 13 or 14 years ago, and remembering it brings tears to my eyes. Back then, I was an overworked, underpaid aide, but when Verna told me that, I felt like I had the most important job in the world.

Most of the time you are right. I have seen older people decide not to live anymore and die within a few days. On the other side of that spectrum, there was a 70-something woman at the assisted living where I worked who was dying of cancer. Since we were just an assisted living facility, not a SNF, we had hospice nurses come to take care of her. For a week, every nurse that came said that they were sure she would die that day. Her hands and feet were mottled, and she was Cheyne-stoking. Finally her daughter arrived from out of state, and once the mom saw her daughter, and held her hand, she passed that day.

On a lighter note, at another assisted living, we had a cute LOL named Eva. She mostly cared for herself, just needed a little help bathing and dressing. After I had worked there a couple of months, she called me in one night and said "Melanie.....I'm dying." She said she just felt strange and she knew she was going to die that night. She was a DNR, but she still had me freaked out. I was taking her vitals q15min, and charting furiously. Her vitals were like a healthy 30 year old, and she did NOT die that night. When I told my boss the next day, she laughed, and said "Oh yeah, she does that every 2 or 3 months. It scared me the first time too."

I used to watch "Most Haunted," but unfortunately it was outed as a fraud. I felt so gullible. I always thought that Derek guy was over the top. I really believe in TAPS, though. I think they've proven themselves to be very credible.

I watch it because it's more funny than scary. As in, not at all scary. It's hilarious watching that blond woman jump out of her skin, and hearing the men scream like little girls.

Specializes in pure and simple psych.
As I said in my post, I was standing in the room when this happened. The rose petals just started floating down out of nowhere. It went on for a little while and then they stopped.

It's been a while since I was a practicing Catholic (currently a recovering catholic) but if there are actual rose petals materializing out of thin air, and it is related to a professed nun, we have a second class miracle, and the Pope wants to talk to you. Tell the local parish priest, get a couple of witnesses and y'all are off to Rome. :saint:

A while later she heard something and looked up, and in the glass of the room in front of her she saw the reflection of the body behind her, sitting up veeeeeeerrrry sloooooowwwlllly. Screamed bloody murder and ran out of the ICU before finding out it was the second transporter....they had decided to scare her!

That sounds great! Wonder if we could pull it off where I work....

i have a friend who doesn't believe in spirits/ghosts. she says that once you die, if you are intended for heaven you go straight there. she believes all spirits/shadows/ghosts are the devil. that he wants you on his side so bad that he will disguise himself as a grandson on a tricycle, a young girl, an infant, a beloved family member, etc.

i have always wondered...if you believe in angels and heavenly hosts, how can you not believe in ghosts? i am not arguing the point, just curious.

i have a friend who doesn't believe in spirits/ghosts. she says that once you die, if you are intended for heaven you go straight there. she believes all spirits/shadows/ghosts are the devil. that he wants you on his side so bad that he will disguise himself as a grandson on a tricycle, a young girl, an infant, a beloved family member, etc.

i have always wondered...if you believe in angels and heavenly hosts, how can you not believe in ghosts? i am not arguing the point, just curious.

people tend to fear anything they don't understand.

Every nurse has her own story to tell. Though others may try not to believe in ghost but in one way or the other they too have encountered some eeerrrie happenings during their tour of duty.

I too does not really believed in it. However, this experience is real. I am a Clinical Instructor and was on the night shift together with my students in LR/DR. The LR/DR is connected to the OR of the hospital. That time we don't have any patient and some of my students are staying in the labor room, while the others are with me in the delivery room together with 2 OB Resident physicians. The other staffs are in the operating room complex. When all of a sudden we heard somebody shout as if she is about to deliver a baby. The sound came from the area where the door is. Hearing it, all of us, including my students who were at the labor room, the staffs who were in the OR ran to the door. Thus, all of us from the three different areas of the OR-LR-DR complex ran to the door expecting to find a patient in a stretcher ready to deliver, but instead we found nothing. The door is tightly closed, not a single soul is present. Even those who are sleeping in the nurses' quarter woke up and also heard the shout.:uhoh21:

If you wanted some nursing ghost story, got several. These are personal experiences.

Several years back when I was just a senior student nurse and was assigned to the isolation room of the ICU to take care of a lone patient who was there for a long time. The patient is unconscious for several weeks. He was brought to the hospital by policemen not knowing his identity. He was found unconscious in a sidewalk. He was on a respirator via tracheostomy. The trache was not a finestrated trache. When all of a sudden, I heard somebody groan. At first I thought that it might just be a sound of the respirator or the monitor, and so I ignored it. Then after several minutes, there was another groan and this time its louder than the first one. So, I checked the monitor and the respiratory for any leaks. . . there was none. Every machine is intact and functioning well. My heart beats a little bit faster this time, however, still trying to keep a brave front, and so i tried to sing to calm myself down. Again for the third time, that groaning and moaning came back and this time, I could not fool myself. No one was in the room except the patient and myself and theres noway a patient in tracheostomy (with the kind of trache the patient had) could groan or moan. I did not think this time and I suddenly bolted out of the ICU door and founf myself in the corridor of the 2nd floor of the hospital in front of a surprised nursing supervisor who is about to visit me and see how I am doing. :idea:

This is not totally nursig related but there was hospice involved and is an amazing story of one's will to live and die.

Wanda is my best since 7th grade (24 years now). Her father had recently passed of lung cancer and shortly after her mother was dx with terminal liver cancer. Given 6 months to live, she should never have made it to Thanksgiving that year. Well, she wanted a granddaughter (wanda only had 2 sons) badly and a few months later on Thanksgiving, she said she was sticking around to see her granddaughter. Wanda had no idea she was even pregnant and on dec 6 of that year lost everything to house fire. Somehow all pics of parents had survived despite all else being lost (it was the only box to survive the fire). That weekend Wanda discovered she was indeed pregnant- HUGE surprise since they were not planning it and took precautions.

Her mom was deterioriating greatly but somehow managed to stay on and fight. Easter came early and we were literally at her mom's home on a death vigil thinking any time it would happen. Poor Wanda, who wanted her daughter to be born so badly KNEW that once she was here, that her mom would go and this tore her up so much! Well April 15 rolls around and Wanda goes into labor. Katrina was born and polaroids were taken and brought to her mom at home with hospice. Once her mom saw the pics she was finally at peace and expired very peacefully.

Wanda tells Kat (new 7) that the same angel that brought her here also brought her grandmother back to heaven.

Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.
This is not totally nursig related but there was hospice involved and is an amazing story of one's will to live and die.

Wanda is my best since 7th grade (24 years now). Her father had recently passed of lung cancer and shortly after her mother was dx with terminal liver cancer. Given 6 months to live, she should never have made it to Thanksgiving that year. Well, she wanted a granddaughter (wanda only had 2 sons) badly and a few months later on Thanksgiving, she said she was sticking around to see her granddaughter. Wanda had no idea she was even pregnant and on dec 6 of that year lost everything to house fire. Somehow all pics of parents had survived despite all else being lost (it was the only box to survive the fire). That weekend Wanda discovered she was indeed pregnant- HUGE surprise since they were not planning it and took precautions.

Her mom was deterioriating greatly but somehow managed to stay on and fight. Easter came early and we were literally at her mom's home on a death vigil thinking any time it would happen. Poor Wanda, who wanted her daughter to be born so badly KNEW that once she was here, that her mom would go and this tore her up so much! Well April 15 rolls around and Wanda goes into labor. Katrina was born and polaroids were taken and brought to her mom at home with hospice. Once her mom saw the pics she was finally at peace and expired very peacefully.

Wanda tells Kat (new 7) that the same angel that brought her here also brought her grandmother back to heaven.

That is so sad.:crying2: I can't imagine having my dd's birthday on the anniversary of my mother's death. What a bittersweet day for your friend.

BTW, my dd's birthday is April 15th! She will be 7 this year:biggringi

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