What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

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...

[fiveofpeep]

I agree with the white and black connotations. Believe it or not, but white people made black evil and white good because of age old racism. At least that is what I have learned from several history teachers.

This is my first post and I love this thread, although my mom who is an ER nurse tells me that she hasnt heard of anything spooky like that.

Something I have read time and time again on this thread.

It's about the good guys wearing white and the bad guys wearing dark. That's a New Age Twinkie concept, not something for real.

What if you were dying and Uncle Charlie came to visit you? What if Uncle Charlie always wore brown or dark suits? Wouldn't it make sense that he would wear something you would recognize?

I guess it just bothers me ever so slightly that so many assume if they aren't wearing white flowing gowns they are all about evil. I just don't agree!

I'm with many folks here, I've seen too much, I KNOW something exists out there. I don't claim to know what or how it all works but SOMETHING is coming to help our patients cross. Just because they aren't wearing long, flowing, white gowns (men, anyone???) doesn't mean they are all evil.

Let's let love flourish when and where it can.

How many have sat with someone while they die to witness the following: they are actively dying, OR.... they don't want to die and nobody is going to make them! They fight death tooth and nail. They refuse to go and nobody can make them leave. They'll even TELL you that!

Suddenly, they look, take a quick double take, smile, try to say something, and die.

Something or someone is coming to get these folks and it isn't a bad guy. It's someone these folks feel comfortable with.

Just because it is something we don't understand or see for ourselves, that doesn't mean it is all evil. Some folks just plain don't wanna go.

My Dad was one of them. He was dying of colon CA. Long story short but he didn't have enough time to prepare for what would happen to him. He was verrrrry clear that he had an angel and his angel was named Pete. He knew about Pete long before the Duragesic, Oxy's, or Vicodin 10's. Pete was there and Pete was real. My Dad didn't pray to his God, he prayed to Pete and asked Pete to talk to God on his behalf. When Dad did end up on mega narcs he could still carry on very clear and lucid one sided conversations with Pete. These conversations made total sense.

Even with Pete and totally trusting Pete, my Dad was scared to death to die. He was a hard core, long term Catholic and he was afraid he hadn't been a good enough Catholic. He was afraid of spending eternity in hell.

When he died (he bled out and vomited pure blood, a ton of it) he strained to turn and look at me, had an absolute look of horror on his face, closed his eyes and died. That look has haunted me from that day. I'm not afraid he really is in hell, my heart just goes out to him that he thought it could happen.

He wasn't afraid of Pete, he was afraid of what his religion taught him. He was verrry afraid, but not of what came to help him cross. He was afraid of his religious teachings.

About 4 hours before my Dad died I saw what looked like a half dozen folks coming to him. They formed a half circle and just stood there watching him. I couldn't see their faces, just their body outlines. I told my sisters about this and they were sure his time was up, I disagreed. I was in mega denial at the time and dismissed it as nothing. He wasn't even supposed to die for a few months.

Long after he died I finally came to realize I wasn't dreaming. There were people, loved ones from previous times coming to get him, help him cross, however you want to say it.

The ONLY thing that made me feel better was the following web site:

www.georgeanderson.com

I'd still be a neurotic mess had it not been for emails between folks at this site and me. They made me realize what I *really* saw. It wasn't fear, it was something else.

Point being, those that come to get our patients and loved ones may not be evil simply because they aren't wearing what we prefer they would wear. Maybe they just have boring taste in clothes. Nowhere does it say only evil will wear a brown suit.

I'm not so sure about all this God stuff, but from watching people die over the last 20+ years I am sure about there being something else after this life. I don't claim to understand it, I just believe it is there. But I have yet to be convinced that they have read our books and I don't believe they are aware they are supposed to wear white flowing gowns.

[StatBlues]

Love your stories, ladies..............

Keep them coming!

[XYRNMN]

love your stories, ladies..............

keep them coming!

i'm actually male, but i'm glad you're enjoying this thread.

-k

[nursebearfeet]

i used to work on the 6th floor. we used the pod system, 6 rooms per nursing station. in pod 2 is room 666, yes, i know. for some reason the patients in that room were always crazy. i'm not sure why they made a 666

the real story is in pod 7, used to be used for burns because it's isolated from the other pods. a woman was in because she had been beaten by her husband. her mom would always be in there with her. mom steped out one afternoon for lunch in the cafeteria, nurse was down the hall getting medications, husband came back and strangled the woman to death.

the drawers at the nurses desk always come out during report. always freaked out the newbies!:roll

[Ruthiegal]

The best I have heard is from a nurse who said that one night she was floated to oncology at the hospital she used to work at. She was given a patient who was passing away and had been unconscious for several days. At one point during the night the nurse went into the room and the patient was at the top of the bed and looked at her and said, "don't let them take me!", the nurse was freaked out and asked her who was going to take her and she said that black thing up there and pointed up in the air. This patient died within minutes.

Come on now share your stories, I know you have seen and heard freaky things.

I was working in a small rural hospital in Ohio one evening. As the dusk became the night a woman in one room kept putting her light on and asking us to close the drapes in her room because she saw the "Angel of Death" looking in at her.... We did pull her drapes shut and about 1 hour later a woman in the room right next to the woman who saw the Angel of Death, passed away... still gives me the creeps. :uhoh21:

[cloudstrife1ph]

these happens during my 3rd year 2nd semester (already a grad student). while my other groupmates are still doing their endorsements, me and my other groupmate rested on the stairs while waiting for them to be finished. while we were chatting, we noticed a kid playing and running on the upper floor. we know that that floor isn't currently used so we were curious why that kid was there. when we went there, the floor was so quiet and verydark. we wanted to continue searching but our clinical instructor is already calling the students so we went down without finding the kid. our clinical instructor asked us where did we go and we said we saw a kid playing on the upper floor. the resident nurse said that that kid died on that floor during her confinement and she sometimes show up playing on that floor.......

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

That would have totally sent me around the bend.

[BJLynn]

I've got a couple:

I had just gotten through telling someone I didn't believe the story about the ghost in the building (I work in a large facility for the developementally disabled in an old hospital). I went back to case file to do some charting. My marker was laying on the desk and began spinning back and forth very slowly. I'm not sure how long. I finally said, very quietly, "Ok, I believe you are there." The spinning stopped.

#2 In nursing school I was taking care of this gentleman who has just been diagnosed with cancer that had basically spread to all of his abdominal organs. I kept trying to get his blood sugar under control, and was really trying to get his pain better. I gave him two bed baths because he was sweating so badly, and even tried massage on his back and feet. He kept telling me he was ready to go and that he wanted to be with his late wife again. He said a couple of times it was ok for me to leave the room. It was time for me to go, so I told him goodbye and thank you for letting me take care of him. He just looked at me and said, "No, Thank You." I came in for class the next day and my instructor pulled me aside. Seems the gentleman was found dead in his bed LESS than fifteen minutes after I left the floor. He waited until I was gone to die, I swear he did.

#3 Not really a nursing ghost story, but happened while I was in nursing school. I was out in the middle of the woods hiking in the rain and darkness (yes I am certifiable) when my cell phone went off. I answered it thinking there was something wrong with my child or my dad or grandmother. It was my mom, and I could tell by the tone in her voice something was wrong. I asked her who had went to the hospital. She got a tremble and told me that my grandma (her mom) had had a massive heart attack at home and couldn't be brought back by the ambulance crew and was pronounced at the hospital twenty minutes later. I told her I could be home within three to four hours. She told me no, that everything would be ok and that my kid would be fine. She told me that Grandma would want me to stay there and take care of my obligations to the people whom I was leading hiking and camping. I finished the hike I was on (not sure how) without anyone knowing what was going on. I went back to the lodge and lost it for a while. I came out and finished up the evening. That night when I went to bed I had a dream. My grandmother said, "It's alright, I'm Ok. Have a good time, finish your weekend, and good luck on finals." I had finals for the first semester of nursing school just three days after her death. I got a 94% on that test. I finished out the year for her. I swear I could have seen her smiling at me on graduation.

[grace90, LPN, LVN]

worked oncology last night, went in the med room and no one else was in there, a plastic bag hanging off the laptop computer in there started swinging back and forth and kept going for a couple minutes until I was done with what I was doing in there and raced out

[StatBlues]

Thanks for sharing your stories!! :)

[sarahr5]

Well this didn't happen in a hospital or anything, but story of my great grandfather, he was a very religious man and would see spirits, one night he told his son to leave the door open of a bedroom and his son (in his 20's at that time) forgot to leave the door open and closed the door, soon after everyone was asleep there was a wild knock and the door was shaking, my great grandfathers son just freaked and opened the door and he saw a spirit walk past him into another room. The next morning my great grandfather told his son, I told you to leave the door open because there is a good spirit that lives in the tree and everynight he comes through the window into the bedroom and to the living room into my room and wakes me up to say morning prayers.

Also when my great grandfather was taking his last breath, all his family and including me were around his bed at home and he said to all of us move out of the way let him come through,and greeted this spirit, we looked back and did not see anyone. Apparently, he greeted the Angel of Death and soon enough he passed away. And my great grandfather was in perfect health mentally and physically till his last breath.

[nursejohio, ASN, RN]

Loving these stories, even the ones that make me wanna :chair: or :sofahider