What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

Nurses General Nursing Nursing Q/A

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 RN CRRN.
My Niece is from Calif. she's been an RN for 2 yrs now. She has similar stories to tell of Pts. who claim to see people walking outside infront of a 3 rd floor window. And that usually a person dies when they see this happens.

She said there is one area that spooks all the Nurses.

And the Hospital even called in a Priest to perform some sort of a cleansing to calm the Paranormal Activity in that area.

I posted about a nurse on our floor seeing a ghost in a mirror...that night I and another RN went in to see if we saw/felt anything...many of us have felt creeped out and "not alone" in there but we never knew how each other felt till that day... It was sunset on the 4th floor. We stood there for a moment and against the door jam I saw a shadow pass as if someone was walking outside-or in the room...but again we are on the 4th floor...even tonight I felt so eeeessshhh in there...hairs on my neck stood up...and tickled the middle of my back...:uhoh3:

Specializes in RN CRRN.
Forgot one: My husband's great grandmother had had a MI and wasnt expected to live very long. The children,grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren were filing in to see her (about 40 of us all together took our turns). We got there close to 9pm. She was waving and smiling at us when we walked in the room and told my husband "good bye" and she would see him in the "Sweet by and by" she passed shortly there after. I do believe people know when it's time.

we had a pt with us a looong time. Due to go home with lots of family to help. He kept saying he saw family that had passed. He kept saying he was going to go soon, but he seemed stronger...Family was quite upset believing all he said. I tried to explain that he was anxious about going home, but I THOUGHT maybe it was his way of telling his family he didn't want to be a bother and that he would be okay with moving on...but nothing he could do about it as he wasn't you know God-very religious...anyway he was DisChg'd and within 10 hours back in the ER with stomach pain, I think it was a AAA...he died within 24 hours....very sad and one of the first times of many where pp "KNOW"

Specializes in RN CRRN.
I agree with the white and black connotations. Believe it or not, but white people made black evil and white good because of age old racism. At least that is what I have learned from several history teachers.

This is my first post and I love this thread, although my mom who is an ER nurse tells me that she hasnt heard of anything spooky like that.

Dark vs light goes back to LONG before Shakespeare. Dark is evil, because something is misunderstood. Light is something that shines to make it understood. I see the light=I understand now. Hasnt anything to do with color of skin. I can write more but I nnneed to go to bed.

Specializes in ortho/neuro/general surgery.

i may have posted this before, and forgive the all lower cases, but i just got off and i'm getting tired (got off work, i mean), anyway... my then 4 yo daughter ended up in the ER unresponsive a couple years ago after swallowing pills, took a few hours to bring her around, later she told us she saw 'butterflies', that they were white and they were looking after her, she's fine now but doesn't like to talk about the incident, i'm sure they were angels

how sad..

this is not the same thing, i know...but the day after tgiving 2005 we had to put our 11 year old dog to sleep and i had been off the few days before with him...he seemed to get better and I couldn't get off work that day no way...I came home and felt so awful knowing I would go inside and he wouldn't be there....I said a little prayer for a sign (you know the whole do dogs go to heaven? will i see him again?) I then thought this is silly...turned off the engine...I had a plastic box/package-square on the seat next to me...the light from the street was far away...but as I reached over to grab my bag I felt this light coming from the roof of the car...I looked up and saw perfectly outlined a dove with his wings outspread -the SQUARE box was reflecting upward -I know others may say it was just a reflection but I had asked for a sign and got one that helped me go in that house....I instantly felt comforted....I knew I would see him again....sometimes I still heard him baying outside... in the months that followed...He was still a hound....even now:o

Thank you so much. This makes me feel better although I wish something like that would happen to me.

Specializes in midwifery, NICU.
I just quit being an airline pilot to purse my dreams of being a nurse. Anyway, my crew and I were walking down a jet bridge to the airplane, and we walked past a family that had just gotten off the plane. The mother was putting a baby in a stroller, the father was standing behind her, and their young son (about 6 years old) was standing right behind the father, doing a little dance. As we start to walk by this family, the son jumped across the jet bridge right in front of me and the other pilot. Then, in an instant, the son disappeared. I stopped dead in my tracks, and watched the family as the mother finished strapping the baby in, and the walked up the jet bridge to the terminal. I looked carefully, but there was absolutely no boy with them. I looked around inside of the airplane to see if the boy was in there, but he wasn't. I asked the other pilot if he had seen the boy, but he hadn't. I was the only one who saw him, but he was plain as day to me. I could tell exactly what he looked like, what he was wearing, and in an instant, he was gone. I truly believe that this was a son that had passed away, but continued to hang out with the family. This happened to me about 2 years ago.

The poor wee guy!:scrying:

I still do not understand why God, does not send someone for these people.

There are all ages, that stick around.

I pray to God, I do not stay in limbo.

:uhoh21:

I still do not understand why God, does not send someone for these people.

There are all ages, that stick around.

I pray to God, I do not stay in limbo.

:uhoh21:

I think God has an "open door policy" and some people just aren't ready to go through that door. I think some people wish to remain here a little longer, and then go through that "open door" when they are ready. Just my opinion though.

Specializes in icu, er, transplant, case management, ps.

I am not sure this is a ghost story. I had a 12 year old young lady as a patient. She was suffering from pernicious amemia.After her parents decided no more treatment was need, sheslipped into a coma. For the four days prior to her death, when I was sitting in a rocking chair, the hair on the back of my neck would stand straight up and I would get a cold chill across my shoulders. When she die, she die at the time I had my experience. And shortly before she die, she came out of her coma, said good bye to her love ones and die.

Woody:balloons:

When I worked in LTC in a local nursing home, there were a few residents that told me they saw a tll man wearing a black coat and a top hat. The next day, one of the residents died.

This happened several times.

None of the stakk ever saw him, only the residents.

Specializes in CMSRN.

I believe the house I currently live in has the original owner wife sticking around. I have not seen her but odd things have occured through out the years.

My husband and I smoke but never inside and usually just when out socializing with friends. Well one night I went into my son's room while he was sleeping (he is only 3) and there was a distinct smell of cigarette smoke in his room. It happened a couple of times in a week and then stopped when I said out loud to "Myrtle" to stop smoking in my son's room.

Up to a year after my children were born I would occasionally hear someone saying "shshshs" coming from the baby's room when they would fuss at night.

I did not bother me to hear it but I would always check on the baby's because I just felt it was her way to tell me to come see.

Lastly for a month a clock on our TV would fall off. Now this clock has been on the TV for 4 years already. But a couple of times a day it would slowly work it's way to the egde (unnoticed) and fall off. My husband blew it off as to work trucks driving by. But there was no new construction and the clock has been in the same spot for a few years. Well one day I noticed it was half off the TV and put it back in it's place. At that point I realized there was a picture of me smoking a tobacco pipe on the back of the clock from over 10 years ago. I then jokingly told my husband that maybe "Myrtle" was trying to tell me to stop smoking. He shrugged it off and nothing was said about it again. But it has never fallen off the TV again since I made that statement.

(I need to check with my neighbor but I want to say that the owner died of something with his lungs. Like COPD or cancer. Not sure, but if he did then I know she is trying to tell us to stop smoking.)

After years of reading this thread I finally have something to add to it. I'm working at a hospital which is one of the oldest if not the oldest hospital here in Phoenix. It's over 100 years old, which for Phoenix is pretty old! I work in OB and the other night I was working in antenatal and a nurse told me about an experience she had had. Apparently the kitchen between triage and LDR is haunted. She was in there one night and heard someone knocking on the window, but couldn't see anyone so she figured she'd imagined it. A couple of days later someone mentioned to her that there's a ghost who knocks on the window in that kitchen!!

We also have a blond 'visitor' who stays around the OB OR's. She's supposedly got long blond hair and several people have seen her. Our OB OR is all the way at the back of the L&D unit and is spooky enough to start with, but now everytime I go back there the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. :sofahider

I haven't experienced anything unusual, other than the elevator not opening at the floor I wanted, and then taking me on a tour of all the other floors of the hospital (with no one there, and me not pushing any of the other buttons). I just chalked it up to an old elevator.

Keep these coming, I love reading them!

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