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...

( The names have been changed in this story to protect the innocent. )

It's been several years ago but a dear friend and coworker of mine, "Buffy Stumpwater" had an experience worth mentioning.

Back in the good old days when we were allowed to read or play cards on the Grave Yard Shift when our work/rounds were completed my friend Buffy was startled one night.

She was engrossed in some fiery Romance Novel that she was reading, when she heard this wobbling noise coming from the wall across the hall from where she was seated. She looked up, just in time to see a 6 inch plastic wall plaque of a Dutch Boy fly off the wall. The plaque landed about 6 feet from the wall, and rolled out to the center of the hall.

I normally work with Buffy, but I had taken that night off from work. When Buffy would read her romance Novels, I would sit at a table playing cards, with my back to the Dutch Boy plaque. Buffy said had I been to work that night the Plaque would have hit me in the head as it flew off the wall.

The following night I was loaned out to another Unit to work. After hearing about Buffy's experience I quickly took my break and headed over to her Unit to investigate the Plaque and try to figure out what would cause it to fly off the wall.

Upon looking at the Plaque, I discover it has one of those key hole hooks on it. The type that slides over the head of a nail and secures it to the wall. In order to remove it from the wall, you need to deliberately slip it up and off this bracket to remove it. But it came off the wall all by itself, seemingly at least to Buffy.

I couldn't figure out how it could've come off the wall.

Still having time to kill on my break, Buffy and I became engrossed in a card game that another coworker "Trudy Hardluck" had joined in on. We were all engrossed in the card game, when all 3 of us heard the Dutch Boy wobbling on the wall. We all looked up at the plaque just as it flew off the wall. I was seated just to the left of where I normally would sit at that table. The wall Plaque flew off the wall towards me, and landed on the floor near my feet, and then rolled under the Table.

I joked nervously saying, "That's just the way the Ghosts let me know that they missed me when I took the other night off from work." I then went into the Nurses' Station and balled up some masking tape and crammed it into the concave back of the Plaque and resecured it to the wall on the key hole hook. I then exclaimed to the Ghosts, "There let's see you remove that!"

The Plaque remained there, for months until the housekeepers replaced it with another Artsy plaque. I haven't seen the Dutch Boy since!

( A "Monsignor" is a member of the Clergy who is higher than a Priest, but lower than a Bishop, or so I understand. I felt the Spirit I met fit into that category. )

It's a special title conferred on some priests but is not a specific office or authority.

I wonder if the facility ever had Catholic priests who came to perform Mass for the patients? Maybe one died there or soon after a mass there.

I don't have a work related ghost story, although I DO work on the grounds of an old mental hospital, but I have had a few weird experiances at home in our masterbathroom.

My first experiance was a few years back and I was drying my hair in our master bathroom in front of the vanity. I had flipped my head over to blow my hair dry underneath when all of the sudden I felt someone touching the back of my right knee, to me if felt just like someone had reached out and put a finger on me. There's was nothing in the room behind me I could of even brushed against. I whipped up, thinking my husband must of came in, poked at me, then ran away. I shut off the blow dryer and went out to our TV and found my hsuand on the couch watching TV. "Very funny" I said. He looked dumbfounded and said "WHAT?" I explained to him what happened, made him swear on a bible he didn't do it and then I got freaked out. He teased me for weeks about it.

Then several weeks after that my husband said I sat up in bed in the middle of the night, let out a blood curdling scream, pointed to our open master bathroom door and yelled "THERE'S A MAN IN AN ORANGE JUMPSUIT IN OUR BATHROOM!!!". My husband jumped up, flipped on the lights and went into the bathroom to look (saw nothing) and said when he came back to the room to tell me I was fast asleep. I don't even remember the incident but my husband told me he laid awake the rest of the night with his heart pounding thinking a deranged escapee from prison was in our house.

About 3 months after that I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a very tall man standing in the doorway of our master bathroom. That one I remember and it scared the buhjeebies out of me. I woke my husband up who did a whole house search before I could get back to sleep.

After those incidents we started shutting the door to our masterbathroom at night.

Specializes in NICU.

Everytime i open this thread I get cold chills!! Literally! It is starting to freak me out!!

I don't have a nursing ghost story but my parents swear the house they used to live in was haunted. They were searching for a house to rent. They found a nice one for an excellent price in a great neighborhood. They were very excited. They had just gotten married and were low on cash. They moved in and at first everything was okay. But after a few weeks, strange things started happening. The front door had a dead bolt and a chain lock. They would lock both at night. Well for 1 week straight they would wake up in the middle of the night freezing. My dad would get up and the front door would be wide open. Not only were they scared but they were fed up. One night my dad locked the door as usual and put a chair in front of the door. When they woke up early that morning, freezing as usual, the chair was back at the table and the door was wide open again. After that however they never had another problem with the door.

A few weeks later my dad was watching the superbowl on TV. He was cleaning his rod and reel. He got up to use the restroom and when he returned his reel was gone. He looked everywhere! A week later he found his reel in a plastic bag under the sink.

A lot of other creepy things happened. The house stayed cold constantly. The power bill was always sky high. My dad called the power company to see if this had been an issue with previous renters. The power company said they didn't have any good records because no one had ever stayed in the house longer than 3 months.

They were scared to death at this point. After a few more things went missing (my mom's kitchen knived ended up behind the fridge) they decided to move out.

They never saw or heard anything.. I guess it was poltergeist???

Now I've gotten my self all scared.... sheesh... i sure hope my roommate hurries home!

They never saw or heard anything.. I guess it was poltergeist???

Now I've gotten my self all scared.... sheesh... i sure hope my roommate hurries home!

Not unless there was a teenager in the house.......a girl.

I worked in a LTC that had a strange haunting. The room in which in happened was occupied by a 65 year old comatose male. He had no roommate. The man's TV was often on, per family request. The volume on the TV would go up and down without anyone touching the volume button. I, myself had been in the room when this had happened. Maintaince had checked the TV several times and could find nothing wrong.

Once on night shift a friend and a CNA went in the room to do a tx on the gentleman. The volume on the TV went up, my friend turned the volume down. Out of no where a man's voice said "Leave it alone!". My friend and the CNA got out of there real fast!! She was still in shock the next day when she was telling me about it.:eek:

I think it was the comatose guy. I would really like to look into this more. I think there is something going on in there.

Specializes in Rehab.

why do i always read these late at night when my husband is sleeping?

:sofahider

( Demon Possesion! )

Many years ago on the Women's Locked Ward I experienced a freaky situation.

I was working the Grave Yard Shift, and for 3 nights straight a very heavy set female Pt., had been restrained to bed, and heavily medicated, in an attempt to control her aggressive, threatening behavior. She was not only a threat to herself, but also to everyone on the Unit. She was a very large and strong woman, who was prone to violence towards others.

The entire time she was restrained she would stare at the wall opposite the foot of her bed, and she would speak in a deep gutteral voice in a language unknow to any of us. It really sounded like some demonized language, and she spit and sputtered as she snarled and glared at the wall. She clearly was interacting with someone, or something that none us could see.

While all the time she resisted against the restraints, and occassionally was able to slip out of the restraints, requiring additional Staff to assist to get her back into the full bed restraints she was kept in.

They had given her every medication they could think of, and multiple doses of many nueroleptics. But nothing fazed the shear brutish energy that raged inside her body.

Plus all during these 3 days she never slept once.

It was about 1 am, and I was standing out in the hallway about 15 ft. from the Pt.. 2 or 3 other Staff were tending to the restrained Pt.. Giving her yet another Injection trying to calm her down.

I stood with a young LPN as we watched the goings on in the Pt's. rm.. I leaned in close to the LPN and in hushed voice I said to the LPN, "When they behave this way, I truely believe they are Demon Possessed!". ( There was was no way the Pt. heard me say this. )

But no sooner had I said that, the Pt. turned abruptly away from the wall she had been growling at, and glared at me and said loudly in her deep gutteral voice, "And you need to lose some weight Fat Boy!". And just as quickly as she said that, she re-engaged whatever she was interacting with in her wall. Speaking in her deep gutteral demon sounding voice.

With in 15 mins. she was sound asleep.

I truely do believe she was Demon Possessed, and that the Demon in her would have kept up her ranting and raving as it had done for the last 3 days, and nights, if I hadn't spoke of it's presence.

Except that when I admitted to that LPN that I thought the Pt. was Demon Possessed, that was all the Demon had wanted. Was for someone to recognize that they were present in that Pt.. After that the Demon was satisfied, and allowed the Pt. to rest.

Several of my coworkers disagreed. Saying that the Pt. would on occassion say very lucid things.

But I tell you her voice sounded very demonistic to me, and most everyone who observed her during that 3 day period. Though most would never admit it, for fear of being ridiculed as being mentally deranged themselves.

Was it just a co-incidence, or was she really Demon Possessed?

We'll never know for sure.

We had a lady on our unit who had advanced cancer, but refused to consent to a Do Not Resuscitate order. She eventually became unresponsive and her family gave a DNR order. I was working night shift when she died. Right at the time she passed the electricity blinked off, everything got dark for a few seconds and the magnetic fire doors banged shut.

Several years ago, on a Unit at the Hospital where I work the Grave Yard Shift, I had just completed my rounds checking on the Patients in my care. All the patients were in bed asleep. All had their room doors shut, and all was quiet on the Unit.

My coworker was in the Nurses' Station doing everything she could to avoid having to come out on the Unit to do any direct Patient care.

This was perturbing to me. Especially when I heard a female voice say to me, "Marva is awake!"

I was P.O.'d that my coworker would tell me this, and not offer to help take care of this Patient's needs. So I decided to wait a bit to see if she would come out of the Nurses' Station to help me. But she never did!

I proceeded down to Marva's room, I opened Marva's door, and sure enough Marva was awake. She was confused about where she was, and kept insisting that she was on a freight train.

I informed her that she was in the Hospital, and on the 3rd floor. I got her tucked back into bed, turned off her light, shut her door and went to the Nurses' Station.

I told my coworker that I had gotten Marva tucked back into bed.

My coworker said, "Oh? Was she awake?"

I said, "Didn't you just tell me 10 mins. ago that she was awake?"

My coworker denied that she had.

So who told me? All the other Patients were asleep in their rooms with their doors closed. ( Hmmm? Marva's door was closed too! )

So who could've known she was up, and awake in her room?

Seems like only a Ghost could've informed me of that fact!

Specializes in NICU.

We had a patient on our floor last week who was very ill with pneumonia. She was elderly and had a trach. She was also on remote telemetry. It seemed like almost everyone was at lunch and I was hanging around the nurses station answering call lights and the phones. Well our telemetry phone rang (never a good sign). The lady watching her monitor downstairs told me to quickly go to room "000." Heart rate was dropping and was right around 40. I hung up and headed down to the room as quickly as i could. I then could hear another phone in the nurses station ringing. I obviously ignored it as I passed another nurse and grabbed her to come with me. By the time we got to the room the patient was gone. No heart rate. By now the patient's primary nurse was in the room with us. They page down to the room saying she had a phone call. The nurse said to tell them she'd call them back. The secretary said, well it is "000's" daughter.

That patient's daughter must of called the second her mom's heart stopped. She had just left to go home and shower and she decided to call back because she had a bad feeling and wanted to know if maybe she should come back. The nurse unfortunately told her yes you need to come back. At that point the daughter knew why. Seemed strange to me.

( The names have been changed to protect the innocent. )

I was working the Grave Yard Shift on the Children's Unit with a coworker named Gill Churchman. Back in the good ol'days we could play cards, read books, but Gill's and my passion was playing Chess.

One fatefull night that we working together we ended up playing 27 games of Chess. Woohoo!

Anyway I digress...during the middle of all these 27 games, I asked him if he was seeing anything strange going on in the south hall way. He said he had seen a man standing in the center of the hall looking at us. He said he was dressed in khaki colored shoes, khaki colored socks, khaki colored jeans, and a khaki colored shirt.

This was the first encounter of the khaki colored ghost that I remember. Although I have to admit I did not see the khaki ghost this night.

I was having my own bizarre paranormal experience that night on that ward. I saw a strange dark blue object move left to right across the hall, but at the ceiling height. This object came straight out of the left wall and straight into the right wall unencumbered by the brick walls.

That ward was "South 5" it was one of the more haunted wards in our Hospital. Though it seems that the south wards all in general, are more haunted than those on the north side of the hospital.

All the south side wards are now under the jurisdiction of another Agency, and the Hospital staff are not allowed to go in these areas anymore. Dang! I miss the activity that I experienced over there!

I have asked Gill once several years after the Khaki Colored Ghost encounter if he remembers that night. He says he has no memory of that encounter.

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