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...

Had a pt who s son had a serious brain infection she was older and had schizophrenia in her ramblingsshe always talked about how she sold her sold to the devil so that he would heal. The night she died when we were shrouding her her body was so hot it was difficult to touch her it felt like she was on fire:angryfire we were all creeped out. But even stranger her son came to from his 'daze' in our hospital a few weeks later.

OK, that's disturbing....

Specializes in midwifery, NICU.

:uhoh3: In our old hospital, two nurses were hurrying towards a lift (elevator) with an old man holding it for them. they got in and stood chatting with their backs to him, but as they turned around they were in the lift alone-- the old man had vanished! This story made the local paper!

also in that unit, call bells in the outside admission rooms would go off during the night, with no-one there and the Maternity unit theatre had a man walking around in it! That was the creepiest place, I hated having to go through there to check the equipment each morning, and would jam open all the doors with chairs, just so I could hear others in the labour room going about their work. Honestly, the hairs on your EVERYTHING! stood on end with the negative feeling in there!

The hospital we joined with has a woman who walks up and down the NICU corridor in a white dressing gown, loads of staff have seen her, but each night shift that I'm on, I ask her not to show herself to me, and so far so good, she hasn't! She must know how scared I am, but it's sad too, is she looking for her baby?:o

i heard this story from a friend of mine, who is also a fellow nursing student but from another university. one night, while they were on a night shift, a 9-year-old female child unfortunately died in the pedia ward. my friend was the one assigned to perform post-mortem care to the said patient. so there he was, cleaning the patient's body and all. he placed a red bracelet in the patient's right hand, as it was the policy of the hospital to place a red tag on the right hand of all patients who are pronounced dead. after performing his tasks, he was on his way to the elevator when suddenly, the little girl came running after him! terrified, he quickly pushed the close button so that the elevator would close right away and bring him to safety down to the lower floor.

while inside the elevator, an old woman in hospital gown asked him why he closed the elevator door right away when a child wanted to board in. still overwhelmed with fear, he explained to the old lady "that was the child that i just performed post-mortem care a while ago. she is already dead. did you saw the red tag on her right arm? that is the mark for all dead patients here in this hospital..." the old woman raised her right arm and replied... "similar to this?"

my friend was found unconcious inside the elevator a few moments later. he never stepped inside the said hospital again. ever.

no honking way!!!!!!!!

that is the second scariest one i have read!!!!!!!!!

Specializes in Brain injury,vent,peds ,geriatrics,home.

This isnt really isnt a nursing ghost story,its wierd anyways .When I was an aide back in the day,I had a favorite patient.She was a nice,healthy enough ,so I thought ,patient,pleasant,fun,,only minimal assist.Anyway I had a strange dream that "Mrs Brown" had died at 630 and I would be responsible for taking care of her body,you know clean her up,tag,and such.I woke up the next day distressed,then I thought well that was a crazy dream,"Mrs.Brown is fine,she was one of the healthiest patients:uhoh21: that I had.I went to work that morning to the shocking news that "Mrs.Brown had died last night at 630!!!Isnt that bizzare?I had no prior knowledge of her death.:uhoh21: Also I happen to live in my grandparents home that I bought 20 years ago,its a hundred years old and has a few stories of its own!My aunt that used to live here before us,insisted she would see "Eddie'her brother in the living room after he had died (we used to think,OK,whatever)but no kidding to this day, on occasion we will get a wiff of a cigar,which"Eddie "used to smoke!!I still wont go in my attic or basement at night.!!my neighbors have some weird stories about our hundred year old neighborhood!!There is some strange goings on!!:uhoh21: :uhoh3: :uhoh21: :uhoh21: :uhoh21: :uhoh21: :uhoh3:

I took care of a lady yeasterday who had a huge stroke with midline shift, DNR; I could see her condition worsen throughout the shift and she was not responsive to any stimuli by the time I was going off, but her son told me on my last round that she suddenly made the sign of the cross. Weird.

Specializes in ortho/neuro/general surgery.

A year and a half ago my then 4 yo daughter took a bunch of her brother's Risperdal and ended up in the ER unresponsive. She was out for at least a couple hours or more (from a mom's perspective), before slowly coming out of it. Later she talked about seeing "big white butterflies" around her at the hospital- angels watching over her?

Nursing student here...about to start clinical...and freaking out about these stories...yikes.

Wow, this thread is addictive!!

Just a few to share..

I was working in a new hospital having recently returned home.. I was a very inexperienced (adult) staff nurse at the time having only qualified a couple of months before.. At the time you could work on the bank (locum or agency work basically!) as a newly qualified - this was what I was doing.. I was looking after 2 bays and two siderooms, so had 14 patients in all.. One of whom was dying and sadly was being nursed in the bay as we had no siderooms available to give her the privacy that should have been afforded to her.. It was coming up to the end of my shift, I was sat at the nurses station completing my documentation for the shift.. I looked up and saw an elderly gentleman walk up the ward towards one of the bays I was looking after.. Thinking I should probably go and check how the lady was I went into the bay only to be met by a health care assistant (hca) coming out from behind the curtains to get me.. The lady had just passed away... We stayed on to help perform last offices, while packing up her things I took a photo out of her locker.. Upon commenting "oh, that's her husband" the hca said she used to talk about him often and had missed him greatly since he died.... Yup - that was the man I had seen walking up the corridor, I guess he was coming to get his wife!

On another occasion, I was working in a haematology unit for 6 months, we had a patient who we looked after for months but sadly she died.. I was assisting another nurse with last offices and, just as we were about to wrap her in the sheet, I commented I wonder whether ******** is here watching, I know I would be if it were me! At that point, the large strip light above the bed went from being bright to a very soft light, the light also went from being right the way across the strip to being a soft ball in the middle... The room went very cold too... The other nurse and I looked at each other and she said "Goodnight *******, god bless" At that point I literally felt something "rush" right through me (the window was behind me, if that has anything to do with it! I kinda think it does!), the light went back to normal and the temperature came back up... The other nurse was a little spooked by this to say the least! A couple of days later I was back on duty again, sadly another patient died in the same room.. The same nurse (ironically) was caring for that patient but she was absolutely flat out giving chemo etc.. I offered to go in and do last offices as I knew the patient well.. So I went in with an hca and when we got to the point with the sheet I was telling him what had happened that last time I was doing this (he had asked, it was all the ward had talked about for the previous couple of days).. At that point the exact same thing happened with the light again... What was strange, the time of day was different (late afternoon as a suppose to late evening) and none of the other lights on the ward were affected.. And when I asked the patient who next went in that room whether she had any problems with her light the answer was always no.. So who knows, maybe it was the patients saying their goodbyes??

I'm also a midwife and talking of rooms which have feelings, there is a room on labour ward that, as a student midwife, I never liked going in.. I mentioned this to one of the midwives and she said that when ever a baby dies he or she is placed in a moses basket in this room for family to come and see... It's the most eerie feeling imaginable...

On a lighter note, while working a night shift once on a postnatal ward we had an unusual amount of babies in the nursery ( we have a rooming in policy but we'd had 4 LSCS that day and I there were another 4 babies whose mothers were exhausted and just needed a couple of hours sleep.. So there were four of us trying to settle 8 babies.. We were, as you do, talking about ghost stories as one of the rooms on the ward was reputed to be haunted.. Now, bear in mind that the unit is heavily locked at night, you have to swipe access to get into the maternity wing and also again on to each ward.. So unless the intercom goes off people can only get in with a swipe card of which your card has to be specifically activated to work.. In the middle of a particularly exciting story one of the girls faces went absolutely beyond white and she let out the most horrific scream.. She was looking in the mirror in which she could see the reflection of the door into the nursery.. When we looked at the door we could see the figure of a man - of whom nobody knew... At this point the door came flying open and the poor guy (who was a new porter who none of us had met!!) came rushing in trying to calm us down.. He had come on to the ward to get a bed to take to the labour ward for a mum who had had an epidural!! So eventually we all laughed and calmed down... The next night it was mainly the same team working, myself and another midwife, the same maternity care assistant who had screamed the night before - but another mca was working with her that night.. At about 3am there was a lull in what was going on and we were laughing about the night before.. The new mca looked a little confused so the other mca took her into the nursery to start recounting the story.. At this point the doors at the end of the ward opened and the same porter walked back in (genius timing).. We all put our fingers to our lips and gestured him to come back down the corridor quickly and to go and look into the nursery.. The following scream (bloodcurdling actually, we'd really scared her!!!!) was absolutely priceless and we were absolutely doubled over in hysterics with tears streaming down our faces for a good 15 minutes!!!!!!!!!

I work on NNICU (neonatal ICU) now and haven't seen anything there - yet!!!

Sorry, I hadn't realised that was going to be such a long post!!

you know, i think a lot of folks wait to die until someone "gives them permission" to do so.

absolutely, i've seen this quite a bit in nursing.. also, the people who almost wait to be on their own - you know, the families who stay at the beside for days but the minute they go for a cup of coffee the patient dies.. i have seen the permission bit quite a lot, whether it's nurses giving people "permission" to die or family.. strange but interesting concept!

As for opening the window to let the spirit out, I'm thinking that if a spirit leaves our body, it can find it's own way to "the other side".

:rolleyes:

Actually I've worked in a few hospitals in England and everywhere I've always worked always makes sure there's a window open in the room where a patient has died! One of the few things I always do, along with leaving a flower by the patient and a bible.

When I was working on the haematology unit I got to know one patient particularly well.. My fiance was doing an 80mile walk over 4-5 days, I went up to see him at the b&b he was staying in.. I mentioned that this particular patient was deteriorating.. About an hour later I had an overwhelming urge to ring the ward to see how he was (when I left the ward he was ill but not ~that~ ill..) but I had no mobile signal.. When I was able to get through I found that the patient had died at the exact time I was trying to ring...

:sofahider

+ Join the Discussion