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...

Specializes in nursery, L and D.
I looked down and there lying on the pavement was seven pennies, all showing heads up. To know the significance of this you would have to go back to the week before my sons friend, Stacy, was murdered. We were at my sons house and were the only one's in the house at the time. I looked down on the floor and saw a penny. Stacy told me to pick it up, and I told him, no, that it was on tails and that was unlucky. I know that Stacy left those pennies there for me that day to let me know that he was ok and that my sons would be ok. There weren't any cars parked beside of mine when I pulled into the parking lot, and there weren't any beside of it when I came out of class. I've still got those pennies and wouldn't take a million dollars for them. I know from my own personal experience that the people we love never leave us. They are always there watching over us.

A few years ago my grandfather died. It was very unexpected. My grandmother and him actually cared for my children (toddlers) everyday while I worked. He had a GI bleed. I got him to the hospital, they stablize and get him to GI lab and cautrize his bleeding dueodenal ulcer and all is well for a time, everything looks good. I go home to tell my sis about all this (she was at home with my kids) and she keeps saying, its not over, its not over. Well, me being a nurse, I certainly thought the worst was over, that everything was fine. All signs indicated this. I spent the night in the hospital waiting room with my younger sis. ICU calls me and says he is bleeding again and they needed to talk to me. His ulcer is bleeding again and rapidly, he codes with me and my sis standing by his room. He is paniced at first saying I can't breath, etc (very tramatic to us) and then this look of peace came over him and he looked at us with so much love in his eyes and dies. They code him and get him back but I can't really feel him there, if you know what I mean. I call in the other family and make my grandpa a DNR after this and sit with him all night and into the morning. My mother found two pennies on her seat during the morning when she comes back from a break. My grandfather and her collected pennies when she was little. Now everytime she is feeling stressed or upset she finds a penny somewhere unexpected. We can also smell my grandfathers cologne at certain times in the house. Its a comfort.

I would have called for an excorcist after death and praying the divine Mercy chaplet with the man if he was so frightened of dying

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.

Wait... youy don't need a crash cart for v-tach, a carotid sinus massage would have snapped him outr of it, and if he was floating, shouldn't you have called an exorcist?

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.

Wait... youy don't need a crash cart for v-tach, a carotid sinus massage would have snapped him outr of it,

Uh.....yeah, you do. V-tach is an unstable rhythm, which calls for the crash cart. And nurses cannot perform a carotid massage.

Fascinating thread. I'm a police officer who has had several run ins with the diabolical, once in a hospital.

I got a call for a 20 year old female who punched her father. She was manic and upset with him because his ancestors were tormenting her. She said they were attacking her as well as taking the form of insects and animals to talk to her.

Law enforcement doesn't do exorcisms so I had to take her for a psych eval under the imminent threat to others (dad). It was approved by the shrinks and I took her to the hospital (Fairfax Hospital, VA) for medical clearance before going to the psych ward.

While we were sitting in the private room in the ER she talked to me and told me about what was happening to her, in great detail. I'm no expert, I have no idea if she had severe mental issues or was struggling with diabolical possession. Or both. I humored her in an effort to develop a rapport and keep her calm.

She quieted down and I started wandering in my own thoughts. I was sitting in the corner in a chair and she was on the hospital bed. The bed started rattling and shaking and I paid no attention. You know how people will sit and shake their leg? That's what I thought it was. After it persisted and got kind of strong I looked over at her to see what she was doing. She was sitting up on the bed with both her legs drawn up close and she was resting her cheek on her knees. She was doing nothing to shake the bed. There was no mechanical buzzing or noises. I was sitting and could feel that it was not an earthquake or the building shaking. I was looking at her and the bed trying to figure out what was going on when it suddenly stopped and she was had not changed her position or demeanor in any way. The moment after it stopped a nurse walked into the room.

That's the freakiest thing I've seen on the job in terms of possible overt diabolical.

PS: I don't write nurses tickets. I figure if I ever get a sudden onset of terminal lead poisoning at work I don't want to see one of you who I just wrote a ticket to. "This may hurt a little bit." :D ;)

Not nursing but an EMS horror story for lack of a better description off the top of my head.

I worked a couple of years for a small hospital-based service in Keokuk County, Iowa back in the mid-later 80's. Prior to coming there they had an "event" with a teen-age male patient in an outlying town, the call coming in as a possible suicide attempt. As it was described to me they (the squad/crew) arrived on scene to find a modest crowd of people, including the First Responders, standing outside staring at the house. No one, it seems, was inclined to remain inside with the subject.

Upon entering they found the teen-agers sitting in a chair in the living room, listening to .... are you ready for this? Ozzie Ozborn (sp?). His demeanor was frankly described as "freaky" and displaced. He spoke with an otherworldly voice to the crew who questioned him while they treated modest cuts to his wrists.

Okay so far, just another freak show sort of call. But it gets wierd, really wierd. This was back when the monitor, a Lifepak-5, was equipped with a simultaneous voice/ECG recorder. The crew had put the monitor on the patient and were recording as a matter of routine, just another way to make notes for later as well as record a continuous ECG without wasting paper. I would have called the following just a case of getting at the new guy had I not listened to the tape myself. It was preserved as you will quickly see why, rather than erased for reuse later.

On the tape you can distinctly hear the one Paramedic talking to the patient, along with at least one First Responder (they did go in with the crew), and also the other Paramedic on the phone in the next room talking to Medical Control at a hospital in the next county. What you CAN NOT hear, not even the hint of a whisper, was the voice of the patient. I've talked with both medics (one since deceased as well as others present, and all swear he was speaking in a conversational volume but with a wierd, unearthly, deep voice. He identified himself as some sort of demon as I recall, and said his intent was to cross over to the "other side."

This kid was about 16, and of course was taken in for a psych eval such as it was worth. Within a year he was found in a local cemetary - quite deceased of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The tape was perfect, the blank spots where he should have been speaking - you could hear the crew responding to his reponses - had only the background noise you'd expect to be washed over by his closer voice. I would never have believed the tale if the tape had not been saved and I listened to it on two seperate occasions.

Ayrman

I was working evenings on a med-surg floor. A youngish woman with small children was transferred to our unit from ICU to die. She had a major anyuerism so this was a sudden and tragic death. She died and her body was sent to the morgue at shift change.

During the evening I needed a pillow so I walked into the room to get one. Something stopped me like I hit a brick wall. I could not go any further into the room and had trouble breathing. Anger resonated throughout the room. You can imagine how quickly I left the room.

I had 5 other people go into the room and all of them had the very same reaction. It was amazing.

The next evening everything was normal again.

Okay here is one of mine. While at work a couple of weeks ago, a group of us were sitting at the nurse's station. And the room right across from the station has a patient that is totally dependant for everything. She has a trach and feeding tube. We were sitting there talking and suddenly her tape player came on and it sounded like the tape was being eaten. There was no one else in the room. And the tape player was the kind that takes some strength to turn on. (We have a few ghosts at my work that roam the halls.) We went in her room and her eyes were wide open and she was scared.

I'm not sure about that. I have a doctor friend who casually debated whether you could use the carotid sinus massage to knock someone out in self defense since the procedure seems to be the body's equivalent of a reset button. Why would a nurse not be allowed to do this?;)

Uh.....yeah, you do. V-tach is an unstable rhythm, which calls for the crash cart. And nurses cannot perform a carotid massage.

Okay, I'll rephrase: I've never worked anywhere where nurses were permitted to perform carotid massage. MD procedure only.

Okay, I'll rephrase: I've never worked anywhere where nurses were permitted to perform carotid massage. MD procedure only.

Nor have I, I was just making a joke

Specializes in CHPN Hospice & Palliative Nurse.

Keep the stories coming! I adore this thread :)

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