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...

[christymwinn]

Just want to "bump" this up to the top and also put a marker in at where I have left off.

[mgalloLPN]

These are so cool.:yelclap:

[CyndieRN2007]

Originally Posted by azhiker96

My wife had a creepy experience a few years ago. She and another nurse were on duty at an inpatient hospice facility. One of their patients was dying and the immediate family was in the room with him. Well, he passed away and the family said their goodbyes. The family stepped out of the room and my wife and the other nurse went in to prep him for other family that was coming. This was about 15 minutes after he drew his last breath and his heart stopped. As they straightened his sheets his right arm rose, bending at the elbow, and he itched the side of his nose with his index finger. Then his arm relaxed in the bent position. Both nurses saw this and my wife turned to her coworker and said, "Don't you dare leave without me." They quickly finished their work and left the room together.

Lord help!!! :chair: This gave me shivers in my spine!! Keep em comin though!! LOL!

[KScott]

"saw a black figure "

After reading this in a few posts. I wonder if it is the angel of death, or a soul collector for the evil? Or if being dark means evil at all? And, a white mist is not evil....?

I wonder too, why so many hang around, earth. Is not heaven waiting for all who have tried to have a good life? Especially the children....why arent they playing in heaven? Why do some have people to greet them, and some dont.

I have so many questions.

I think a book could be made and published with all these stories and more.

:)

The meanings humans attach to colors is a cultural thing. I just found this article which is quite interesting: (This is just a one paragraph clip. You can read the whole thing at this link: http://www.bwwsociety.org/feature/color.htm )

"It is important here to note that there are a great deal of variations and subtleties of various colors. Therefore, the focus will be to concentrate on purely saturated hues of black, white, red, yellow, blue and green. Hue refers to the name of the color. Value relates to the lightness and darkness of a particular color, and saturation or chroma is a term meaning the intensity or brilliance of a color. The extreme polarity of black and white has been universally symbolic throughout history in most cultures. Black symbolizes evil, emptiness, death, and dirtiness, but also power, dignity and strength. Since black symbolizes death, it is the color worn by many cultures in times of mourning. “Its use in mourning is very old, it probably comes from the ancient Semitic custom of blackening the face with dirt or ashes to make it unrecognizable to the malignant dead, as well as a mark of grief and submission” (Genov 4). At the extreme opposite is white. This color symbolizes purity, sterility, innocence, and goodness, but also sterility in most cultures (Sharpe 47). Most religions use white to indicate spirituality, hope, and innocence. Jewish, Christian and Hindu religions use the color white in rituals to indicate purity, chastity, virginity and inner peace. The symbol of the white dove signifies a state of perfection, peace, and blessedness. In marriage ceremonies of many cultures, women wear white. Since white is symbolizes cleanliness and sterility in most cultures, it is not surprising that it is the flag color used in hospital and health care facilities throughout the world. While most countries designate black as the color of mourning, in China and most of Asia, the color of mourning is white (Mahnke 64-5). This is not a complete contradiction, however. In many religions, there is the belief that death is not an end but a beginning. The use of white in this context means that a person brings purity into the next life. Today as in the past, black has mostly negative connotations due to the fear of the unknown associated with darkness, night and the absence of light. White is representative of a positive color. This distinction between black and white as extreme opposites is symbolic in most cultures."

I love ghost stories, not only for the "chill factor," but for the cultural threads that run through them. Many here talk of patients seeing, or talking to Jesus, or of smelling sulphur, or experiencing some sort of darkness - alluding to hell - during a near death experience. A couple patients are said to have experienced a personality change following these experiences. Others have seen family members, or angels. My grandfather, told me the day before he died the angels had come to see him and everything had been taken care of. This was shocking to me as he never spoke of anything "heavenly," or "angelic" outside of an interest in the paranormal.

I'm interested in how people from other cultures and religions other than Christianity experience near death and how they treat their ghosts. I know some in the Chinese culture feed their ghosts and burn paper (pretend) money for their dead ancestors to use in the after-life to ensure they are well taken care of don't need to come back to haunt them.

[christymwinn]

just putting in my "bookmark". I love this thread!!!

[Spritenurse1210, BSN, RN]

kind of a ghosty story here. last month my grandfather passed away after a breif battle with lung cancer. he worked most of his life to support his family was a man of his word, and served his country. years ago he was an alcoholic and not so good to my dad and his family. he quit drinking about 15 years ago and was a "changed" man. anyway my mom had called me about 1 am after he had passed away at home in his little scooter he got around in. i told her please open the window so his soul can go to heaven. right after i went outside to say a prayer for his soul and looked up at a beautiful stary sky. i asked god to guide his soul to heaven then i saw a shooting star. i thought it was pretty neat.

it sounds pretty neat to me too!!

[NJNursing, ASN, RN]

The stories on this "thread" re seeing "people" who aren't there seconds later or children turning on call bells in a hospital that used to be an orphanage..........interesting.!

If anyone has ever listen to the psychic Sylvia Brown......according to her, those that have "passed" but who haven't "gone to the other side......to the light"....hang around where they died and are not aware that they are dead. She says "the soul" continues to exist as energy.

Since most people believe there is life after death........this is one explanation for the phenominon described in this thread. AND because I haven't another explanation.....works for me!

These stories are amazing and more than one has sent chills up my arm.

Ever see the show on CBS - the Ghost Whisperer? It basically has the same philosophy as you said that Sylvia Brown has.

[suebird3]

All I can say about the "visitors" is that Energy continues after we "pass on".

Suebird 🙂

[middleageNP]

suebird3 said:

All I can say about the "visitors" is that Energy continues after we "pass on".

Suebird 🙂

Well, energy never dies, just recycles supposedly. I don't know what to think of spirits who haven't moved on, frankly because I'm afraid. I grew up with my mother, who firmly believes in ghosts, telling tales of floating heads without bodies, or bodies walking around without heads terrorizing people, etc... Scared the living daylights out of me.. About 10 yrs ago, my younger brother died. My older brother and his now ex-wife swore my younger brother kept visiting them for months afterwards. It was on their couch that he passed away on. My sister also swore that she had seen him too in a partial dream-awake state. As for me, I loved my brother dearly, but I've never had a visit from him, so I don't know what to believe. But I'm freaking out from reading all these tales. I mean it makes perfect sense that spirits would hang around where they passed on. Hospitals would surely be full of you know what.....

[SaraO'Hara]

I work in a LTC facility.. and I actually did see a floating head two days ago. I was making a bed, and had bent over to mitre the corner of the sheet opposite the door. I looked up toward the doorway in time to see a head... just a generic head... float by about 4 feet off the ground. I went into another resident's room a few minutes later, and I swear, there was the most pervasive feeling of doom in there. She was taken out to the hospital yesterday... I'm just waiting to see if it was some kind of warning .

[buddiage]

Nice to see one of my favorite threads again.

[middleageNP]

SaraO said:

I work in a LTC facility.. and I actually did see a floating head two days ago. I was making a bed and had bent over to mitre the corner of the sheet opposite the door. I looked up toward the doorway in time to see a head... just a generic head... float by about 4 feet off the ground. I went into another resident's room a few minutes later, and I swear, there was the most pervasive feeling of doom in there. She was taken out to the hospital yesterday... I'm just waiting to see if it was some kind of warning

OK... You guys are really freaking me out. I've yet to even start nursing school, and I don't want to be in a horror movie like atmosphere.. Seriously though, are there that many supernatural encounters? Particularly about the possessed patient sitting 2 in above the bed ?