Boo! Ten (10) Creepy Nursing Stories
As nurses, we were taught to be brave, to face situations though they scare us crazy. These include having to face blood, treat patient’s not-so-pleasant wounds and of course witness life and death situations. In other words, nursing is not for the weak hearted.
However, on the other side of “scary,” most of us have encountered at least one creepy paranormal experience in our nursing careers. Remember that time when you felt like someone was following you while administering medications while on night shift? Or that time when you were certain that someone just passed by when there actually wasn’t anyone there?
Here are some creepy nursing stories gathered from allnurses.com. Enjoy, or shall I say, boo?
“Don’t let them take me”
The best I have heard is from a nurse who said that one night she was floated to oncology at the hospital she used to work at. She was given a patient who was passing away and had been unconscious for several days. At one point during the night the nurse went into the room and the patient was at the top of the bed and looked at her and said, “don’t let them take me!”, the nurse was freaked out and asked her who was going to take her and she said that black thing up there and pointed up in the air. This patient died within minutes.
Something evil
One night I was caring for a dying male patient. He was scared and I spent quite some time with him, trying to calm and reassure him. Eventually he calmed and I left the bedside and went over to the nurses station which was about 15 feet away. As I sat down I glanced over to him and there was a black shape standing over the bed, looking down at the patient. I was terrified, and am sure it was something evil.
Twin brother
I used to work in a state institution for the developmentally disabled. We were temporarily relocated to another building for the remodeling of our building. Anyway, I was working one night, 2nd shift. We had a locked pica unit when I saw one of the residents walking down the hall with a very distinct gait and very distinct yellow t-shirt with a happy face on it. I went into the ward to let staff know that they had an escapee. This was a serious situation because this particular resident, Larry, would ingest absolutely anything (from clothing to pens to belts to *ugh* a bird’s head) literally anything. He was also very reluctant to go back to his home ward (hence why I didn’t bring him back myself, he needed two escorts). When we got back into the hall, less than 15 secs later, Larry was gone! We searched the entire building! Outside, downstairs, all wards but he was NO WHERE to be found! This whole search lasted about 10 mins because I had all extra staff looking for him. I was just about to call the house supervisor to let her know that we “lost” someone when out from the bathroom walks Larry with one of the staff. He had been getting his bath in the bathroom for the last 30 mins or so. Kind of freaky! I absolutely, without a doubt, saw Larry in the hallway. I never would’ve short-staffed the wards like I did if I hadn’t seen him! Like I said, very distinctive gait, look, clothing. I took a lot of razzing that night! They all thought that I was crazy. Anyways, I come to find out the next day, after the story goes around that I am crazy that Larry had an identical twin brother who died in that building 10 years previously.
Call from the grave
We had a patient who was always on the call button. You know the type. The nurses have to take turns during the shift answering the call button so the primary can actually do other work.
I work 7pm-7am. He died about 8pm. Oh, the look on his face, like, “How could you let me die!” Like it was our fault. Anyway, family came and gone by 9pm, funeral home gone at 9:30pm. About 10pm, the call button starts going off. I was there – call button going off every 5 minutes.
One of the nurses was a very spiritual girl. At about 2am, after like 4 HOURS OF THIS, nurse Mary snaps, “Enough!”
She walks down and practically screams into the empty room: “Mr. X, you have died. You can’t be in here bothering us anymore. Move along. In the name of Jesus, I’m exorcising you from this plane of existence. Go to the light and be happy!”
And I kid you not, the call button stopped going off then and there.
That place in the wall
We have a white figure that has been seen in the medicine room, sometimes the carts are moved down the hall while you are in a room giving meds, etc. One of the male CNAs reported seeing a very tall black figure going from room to room several times. We have all seen balls of light floating around. From what we have been able to gather from old pictures of the property that the nursing home is on there was a mobile home park at one end and a cemetery at the other end of the building. Everyone has seen a little boy walking around but the freakiest part was when they saw wet children’s foot prints coming down the hall and followed them to the wall and there were footprints in the snow outside that came right to that place in the wall.
12:15pm
I don’t know if this qualifies as a ghost story but here it is. I was taking care of a 12 year old with aplastic anemia. A week before she died, every day, at 12:15pm, I would get a cold chill across the back of my neck and the hair there would stand up. I mentioned it to the evening nurse, who was convinced she would die at that time. Several days later, her parents decided to cease all treatment. She lapsed into a coma. At 12 noon, she woke; asked me to hold her up; said goodbye to her parents, grandparents, and siblings; and died in my arms. It was 12:15 pm.
Maggie
A couple, retired military captain and his wife, Margaret, sold their house to move to Florida. It so happens that they sold their house to the State – the state was going to use it as a resident home for mentally disabled teens. After the closing, but before they moved, Margaret died in the house. The Captain had to move because the house was already sold.
Do you know where I’m going with this? Residents always referred to ‘old lady’ that they always saw. Nursing staff just referred to her as ‘Maggie’.
Now, late at night, when the residents were asleep, if the staff put the TV on more adult programming, like ‘Red Shoe Diaries’, etc., the TV would turn off, and when turned back on, would come onon a different channel. There was this one nurse, it was like the house was out to get her. She’d swear that ‘the carpet tripped me’. When cupboards opened, knives would fall out aimed at her. Turns out this nurse was eventually fired for abusing and stealing from the residents.
Maggie takes care of her ‘children’.
This was represented to me as a true and ongoing story.
Betty’s back
I work as a CNA in long term care. We had one resident, “Betty,” who was totally independent. All ADL’s were done on her own and she did fine on her own, never had an incident. The only time she wanted help was showers and then she only wanted you around to make sure she didn’t slip and fall. Betty came down with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. When she came back she was too weak to do things on her own but too stubborn to ask for help. The last thing the CNA told her before going to bed was “If you want to get up, hit your call light. I’ll come help you.” Of course she didn’t, got rid of the bed alarm, climbed out of bed, and fell. Betty died from the fall. Her bed has been empty since.
The following week the call light for the room went off at night. Thinking it was the resident in bed B I walked down the room to see what she wanted. I walked into the room only to see the call light for bed B and A off, the call light for bed C (Betty’s unoccupied bed) was on. My eyes filled up with tears, I backed out of the room, and made someone else turn the call light off.
Dead nun’s roses
I used to work in an old catholic hospital. Where the labor and delivery unit is located now, it used to be the convent for the nuns that worked at this hospital. One of the nuns died of natural causes years ago. This nun loved and raised numerous varieties of roses. Ever since the OB department was moved to this area, anytime a mother or baby is having difficulties you can smell the scent of roses throughout the whole unit. The OB nurses know to be prepared when they start smelling the scent of roses. If a mother or baby dies, the room suddenly fills with rose petals. It is one of the creepiest, but also loving things that happens. I was standing in a room one night when the baby died. The room filled with white and pink rose petals. The nurses and family was creeped out.
Don’t let me die
This is really more of a possession than a ghost story. I was helping another nurse with a patient that had lived a very hard life. He had numerous things going on with him, from cardiac to renal failure. This man was very much afraid to die. Every time his heart monitor beeped, he would just go into a rage screaming, “Don’t let me die! Don’t let me die!” The other nurse and I found out why he didn’t want to die.
About 0200 his cardiac monitor starts alarming V-Tach. We both rush into the room. I am pulling the crash cart behind me. When I get to the room, the other nurse is completely white. This man was sitting about 2 inches above the bed and was laughing. His whole look completely changed. His eyes just had a look of pure evil in them and he had this evil smile on his face. He laughed at us and said, “You stupid b****es aren’t going to let me die are you?” and he laughed again. We were kinda frozen. I did reach up and hit the Code Blue button and when I did the man went into V-fib. He crashed back onto the bed. We started coding him, but after 20 minutes it was called.
Five minutes after the code, several of the code team is in the room cleaning up when this man sits straight up in the bed and says, “You let him die. Too bad.” and then begins laughing. The man collapsed back to the bed. We heard a horrible, agonizing scream (actually every patient in the unit that night commented on the scream), and then you could hear “don’t let me die” being whispered throughout the unit. Every one of the nurses that night was pale and scared. Nobody went anywhere by themselves. By morning the whispers of “don’t let me die” were gone. The night shift nurses had a prayer service in the break room before we left for home and then we all had nightmares for weeks
Source:
http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/whats-your-best-108202.html
Liane Clores, RN MAN
Currently an Intensive Care Unit nurse, pursuing a degree in Master of Arts in Nursing Major in Nursing Service Administration. Has been a contributor of Student Nurses Quarterly, Vox Populi, The Hillside Echo and the Voice of Nightingale publications. Other experience include: Medical-Surgical, Pediatric, Obstetric, Emergency and Recovery Room Nursing.
