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...

[RNDreamer]

speaking of ghosts in pictures...has anyone seen the movie "three men and a baby"? and/or heard the story of the ghost (a little boy who died in the location a particular scene was filmed)...I saw the movie and in the scene, you can see a little boy in the background, but I'm not true sure how true the story is, thought (or hoped) maybe it is a cardboard cutout that acidently was captured in the movie...anyone else know what I am talking about?

Editing: decided to do a search and found this online, so I guess I was right (maybe):

http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/3menbaby.asp

I used to work in retail and my manager had a niece that was dying. She was in the hospital when they celebrated her 3rd birthday. There were only 3 people in that room, her mom, my manager and the little girl. Couple of days after the b-day she had passed away. The real shocker came after the photos were developed. There were 3 men in the picture that were not there in the room at all. 2 were standing behind the girl and one was leaning on the TV . My manager showed everyone the picture and to this day people come to her office to look at it.

[karleb, RN]

Cherokee -- I think most of us agree that the stories don't have to necessarily be in a nursing setting. I personally would enjoy hearing about anyone's encounters no matter where or when they took place. I love hearing about it.

Chime in, everyone -- what are your thoughts?

I'm with you NurseyTee!

[CHATSDALE]

i am not a 'spirit magnet'but i have had a few unexplainable episodes..maybe some people are more attuned to thre nunance

[TazziRN, RN]

Trauma, your son definitely had a Guardian Ghost watching over him!

[McBx3]

All of the women in my mother's side of the family are extremely clairvoyant(including my toddler, whom I have heard conversing w/ my deceased sister ), so my ghost stories are too numerous to count... however, I only have one related to nursing, and it's not exactly a "ghost" story, but still freaked me out none-the-less (Hey, just b/c there are a lot of experiences w/ ghosts in my family doesn't mean I'm not freaked by it! lol)

I was working on 3rd floor of a 4-floor hospital, and I worked the night shift. The hospital was doing a lot of remodeling, floor by floor, and they had just completely shut down 4th floor to renovate it (it used to be the surgical unit, but they combined Med and Surg, and were turning 4th into pediatrics - a very small hospital I might add).

Anyway, we ran out of D5W bags, and being that I wasn't busy, I volunteered to run downstairs to 2nd floor to borrow some since pharmacy was closed for the night. I got on the elevator and pushed the "2" button... I felt the elevator start to go up, and when the doors opened, I was on 4th floor. I was a little concerned, but thought I must have pushed the wrong button, so I pushed 2 again, and nothing happened, so I went back down to 3rd floor. When I got there, I pushed "2" again, and went right back up to 4th! Well, I got off the elevator, deciding to take the stairs... the floor was dark, except for a few lights on here and there, and being the chicken that I am, I rushed around to the stairwell. Only when I got there, it had been chained closed to prevent wandering people from coming up and exploring the empty floor (sounds like a fire hazard, but I swear it was chained shut). By now, I was a little more than scared, so I ran back around to the elevators and pushed the down button... Nothing happened. I pushed it again, and still nothing happened... Finally, I started pushing the button frantically and FINALLY the elevator doors opened. I pushed the "3" button, praying for the doors to close quickly LOL. I got back to 3rd floor, got out of the elevator, and took the stairs for the rest of the week.

I read some posts above about "guardian ghosts" and thought I'd share one of my experiences real fast, too.

When I was about 3, my mom and grandma were making dinner, and had sat a glass pan on top of the stove... One of them mistakenly turned on the wrong burner, causing the pan to shatter. I was standing directly in front of the stove. My mom panicked, sure that I was cut to bits, but there wasn't a scratch on me. Both my mom and grandma had glass peices stuck in their legs at my level, and there was glass impaled in the wall directly behind me. So obviously something sheilded me from the glass. My younger sister died at 4 months of SIDS when I was a year old, and my personal opinion is that she was protecting me (I have had several other occurances where I believe she intervened as well... may not be the actual case, but it's a thought I like to believe :)

[Cherokee RTW]

That's a very touching story! Thanks for sharing it with us!

[nitetimeobnurse]

The labor and delivery unit at our hospital has its very own ghost, it hangs out in the empty rooms, you can just feel the hair on the back of your neck when you go into some of these rooms when no one else is there. One night I was doing my nightly checks, o2 supplies etc. and walked into an empty room, and heard someone breathing like they were just laying there, I looked around and saw no one, it was very eery, when I discussed this with the other nurses on the unit, they laughed, because they send everyone who comes up into that room when it is empty. Because that sound is there, no one knows where it comes from, and every one is freaked out by it. They have named the ghost after the hospital, but no one knows for sure.

[meditate]

Hi to all of you. I just found this site tonight and I am really enjoying reading all kinds of information. I love hearing about the ghost stories. I have an interest in this area anyways, so it will prepare me for the spooks once I become a nurse. Take Care!

[Investigator]

My sister also works in a Long term care facility. She has had several patients tell her that they see children wandering in their rooms late at night. Usually shortly after these "visions" the patients die.

[ShayRN]

One night I worked a double. Since our building is so new, we have a wing that isn't finished upstairs. Our PR department was holding a fundraiser based on Mardi Gras. We had volunteers up there on afternoon shift building really cool floats. I went up and introduced myself and thanked them for their time. They told me that they wished they had MORE TIME because the had so much more to do and had been there until 2 the night before. Anyway, about 2:30am I heard a lot of scraping and pounding coming out of that wing. Then the door coming out of it kept opening and closing. I told the girls I was working with to come up with me and I would introduce them to the guys working on the float. Then, maybe we could see if they wanted some coffee. So we went upstairs, opened the door.... nobody was there. The lights were all out and everything was packed away. This was literally, 45 seconds after I had heard all the noise.:chair: :sofahider

[snapdragon928]

Not a Ghost story per say but a spooky one. Last wedenesday I had to take one of my clients to the emergency room as he would not eat or drink anything for a day and a half. I work in an adult foster care home. After spending most of the day and night there they finally admitted him at midnight,( I had the luck of finding out that they were admitting him at shift change.) In fact, he is still there. To get him to his room we took an elevator up from the ER area. After getting him settled in his room and talking with the nurse on his needs for care, I thought, I wonder how many scary stories these nurses have, being this hospital has been around for years. It probably has allot of ghost stories. Well, I left down the same elevator I came up in. I had trouble getting it to move but it finally did. I had to push the button on each floor. Once down the doors would not open. I pushed the button several times, getting rather concerned, and almost afraid of it actually opening to something strange. After a few minutes of working up a fear, I pushed the help button. At first she could not hear me, which only increased my fear. Finally she said are you a visitor in a surprised voice. I responded yes and I can't get out. Well someone ran down and opened it for me finally so i could leave, they said that elevator is only supposed to work with a special badge, only employees were supposed to use it, so they were curious as to how I got it to work. They all had a good laugh, but I was very leery of elevators after that!:uhoh21: Oh, and I am claustrophobic too.

[MisfonzRN, RN]

I had a weird experience at work one night several years ago. I was working the graveyard shift on the children/adolescent unit at the psychiatric facility where I still work.

We had one teenage female Pt. that was quite prone to violence, and if at all possible we wanted her to sleep through the night as she was also prone to making up lies about staff abusing her.

I was working the unit with a female coworker "Trudy Hardluck" who was busy in the nurse's station. I was out on the unit sitting facing south down a long corridor. The teenage girl's room was near the south end of the corridor. Her door was open while she slept. After about half way through the night I heard this weird noise coming from the south end of the corridor. I looked up, wondering where this noise was coming from and what was making it. It sounded like ( Whoompf, whoompf, whoompf ).

Just then one of 2 helium filled birthday balloons she had in her room, came out of her room. I guess you could chalk this up to some form of a gentle breeze if you're a skeptic. But I didn't feel any wind current.

The ceilings in the girl's room and in the corridor are about 2 ft higher than the top of the door jam. So the balloon had to lower itself down to get under the door jam to get out into the corridor. The ceiling had suspended ceiling tiles with metal ribs that held the tiles in place. The metal ribs ran down the length of the corridor. The balloon lowered itself under the door jam, and back up to the ceiling. It then traveled about 2/3 rds of the way across the corridor, and then proceeded to make it's way down to the end of the corridor at ceiling hieght. When it got to the end of the corridor, the balloon sank to the floor.

Now the only thing I could figure out that would cause the balloon to sink would be barometric changes.

I retrieved the balloon, and thrustfully threw the balloon back into the girl's room, where it again floated to the ceiling. I had no sooner sat down in my chair when I again heard "whoompf, whoompf, whoompf ", and looking up I saw the balloon again lower itself under the door jam, raise back up to the ceiling. It then traveled about 2/3 rds of the way across the corridor, and then proceeded to make it's way down to the end of the corridor at ceiling hieght. When it got to the end of the corridor, the balloon sank to the floor. That was the 2nd time it had followed the same path.

I called the LPN out of the nurses' station and told her to watch this. Again I threw the balloon into the girl's room. Walked to my chair and sat down. Sure enough the balloon came out and traveled the same path, and getting to the end of the hallway lowered itself to the floor.

I retrieved the balloon, and threw it in the Pt's room again.

We watched it a total of 5 times, and even the Nurse came to watch and be mystified by the balloon's action.

By this time I was growing tired of fetching the balloon and putting it in the girl's room. So the last time I wedged the balloon behind her door so it couldn't get loose, and come out again.

In retrospect I shouldn't have messed with the Balloon to see what it would've done after it had lowered itself to the floor.

..................................

My brother had a similar expereince with one of those mylar helium balloons, like the girl had in her room.

My brother had one of these balloons, and it would follow him and his wife where ever they went in the house. If they went up stairs it went too. If they came down stairs, it followed them down stairs. No matter what room the went to, sure enough the balloon would follow them. Eventually they became annoyed with the balloon following them around the house, so they popped the balloon and threw it away.

Now if it wasn't the barometric pressure, or some kind of static charge, or some type of faint wind current that caused these 2 balloons to behave this way, then I guess it must have been some type of paranormal event going on.

Wouldn't you say?

I now have an irrational fear of mylar balloons.