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...

[ebear, BSN, RN]

Trendynurse! GAALEE!! That scared the CRAP out of me!!!! I think I jumped out of this chair 2 feet!!!!

[ebear, BSN, RN]

I live in a 108 yr-old restored home in the south. A couple of days ago, I was sitting in the family room in a recliner reading. All of a sudden, a flower arrangement in the foyer fell off a perfectly level marble top table and crashed into a hundred pieces! I was the only one home (I thought!) The arrangement was in the very center of the table and there is NO WAY it could have just fallen off! About 5 minutes later, the light in the same foyer started to flicker and went out. I got up to go look, thinking the bulb had blown. It hadn't...The switch was turned off!!! I have also seen "butt prints" on my beds upstairs. I asked my husband if he had been sitting on the beds (I didn't care if he was) and he said "no". He came to look and was amazed too. Perfectly formed butt prints like someone had just gotten up from the beds! I don't know--we've been here 5 yrs. and I ignored some stuff earlier thinking I was imagining things. NO MORE! I'm getting freaked out!!! :uhoh21:

ebear

[StatBlues]

I have had many personal experiences.

This last week. I woke at 6am. To someone sitting on the side of my bed. It was very dark. I have my room darkened to keep out any light.

I thought it was my sister. I heard a crinkling sound of my bedspread. Like someone was shifting their weight. I kept real still as this was happening.

I then reached out, to see if it was my sister. And, no one was there. So I turned on the light. No one in the room.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. I was very awake.

Not sure who was visiting.

[grace90, LPN, LVN]

This morning about a half hour before shift end, I was trying to get last minute charting done and trying to remember what I might have forgotten to chart.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone standing by me and turned my head to talk to them, thinking it was another nurse, but no one was there. It looked like this person was wearing white, and none of us had white scrubs on last night now that I think about it. I felt the hair on my neck stand up. A few minutes after I saw her, I had a feeling she was critiqing (spelling?) my nursing skills. Then I suddenly remembered an important bit of charting I needed to fill in, like someone had reminded me.

I've seen this white-clad ghost before, and I believe it's an old nurse who passed on physically but continues to work. I have seen her before, from the waist down, with a white dress on like an old-school nursing uniform. She doesn't seem to be malevolent. She was active last night. A door to a tub room no one uses was hanging open a couple times. There was noise in the room that I get the strongest feelings in, even though it was empty. It sounded like things being banged and dropped and drawers being slammed and only lasted a couple minutes. I thought it was housekeeping, but I don't think they were in there at the time.

Construction is going on at the unit and there's plastic surrounding the nurses station to keep it sealed off. The plastic was hanging open a few times, even though we've all kept it shut to protect pts from the dust.

I've wondered if she is a former nursing instructor who I had given care to when she was getting on in years and was a pt on our unit. She died earlier this year. Who knows, though. I'm not sure.

[Valanda]

I took care of a very gentle mannered southern lady who would only get upset about one thing. She had limited range of motion in her arms and would scream at anyone who placed her denture cup at the back of the bathroon sink in the corner.

She would yell and tell them that she could not possibly reach it back there and she would make them move it to the front edge of the sink. It was nearly an unwritten policy that denture cups went in the back corner of the sink's counter, so she ended up yelling about this problem nearly every night.

After she died, if anyone placed a denture cup in the back corner of the sink it would move to the front corner. The first time it happened to me I called nearly all the staff down there to check it out. And sure enough, every time it was placed in the back, you could watch it move to the front. Our maintenence man was very sceptical and made sure the counter was completely dry, then got out his level and tried it again. Interestingly, the counter was not level, but actualy tipped back slightly toward the back wall. So gravity would have been working the other direction!

In the 3 years I worked there after she died, this remained a constant thing, and we just loved to spook the new employees with our ghost who moved denture cups.

[AprilRNhere]

I have 2.....neither a big deal or anything to do with nursing..but I'll tell them anyway.

1st....I read this thread about 2 months ago. Before that...I'd really never given "ghosts" a second thought. I didn't believe in them...but I didn't really disbelieve in them either. Well..my dh and I read this thread together..and talked about what we thought. We both admitted that we'd felt a presence in our house before...but never saw anything before so hadn't thought much of it. (old house...estate...previous owners both died on hospice here) We both agreed we were open to the concept of ghosts..just never had a reason to believe in them.

A couple of nights later...as I sat at the computer reading I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned around...and in the dark (around midnight) I watched a light orb float around the room for appx. 45-60 seconds. It wasn't a person..but I really felt like it was a previous owner telling me they heard our conversation..and were just saying "yes, we are here"

The other one....is more real. I live in a rural town in MN...where a few years ago there was a murder of a great family farmer who everyone knew. His wife auctioned off the farm and everything about 2 months afterwards. I recently was shown pictures from the AUCTION....and in it is a picture of his farm truck as it was being auctioned off. In the front seat...with a wide grin...sits the man who was murdered. Just fuzzy enough to tell he's not really there...yet definately there enough to not deny it. (this pic was taken by his granddaughter....who I KNOW didn't fake it..she was as freaked out as anyone)

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

I've got to get in on this one, but not tonite. It's past my bedtime already. CUtomorrow!!!

[sziq1]

I'd have to say nurse managers. I've heard they exist, but I very rarely see one.

I have seen them, they do exist but I have yet to see one do any work!!hehe!

[sziq1]

It seems that every once in a while on our cardiac tele floor there will be a certain room where patients seem to keep crashing. Sometimes we can have 3 or 4 people either die or have to be transfered to the ICU out of the same room, one right after another. We (the staff) decided to have the chaplin come and bless the room to see if it helps and it really does help. In the five years that I have worked there we have probably done that to half a dozen rooms on the floor (34 bed unit) and it works everytime!

[vetnrse]

I'd have to say nurse managers. I've heard they exist, but I very rarely see one.

cute!

[vetnrse]

Wow!!

[vetnrse]

Dogs are the same in 'death' as in life... Angels that never leave you!