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How many night nurses have you met who swear they have, at one time or another, seen or heard something during their shifts that can’t quite be explained?
According to a CBS News article in 2005, 22 percent of Americans believe they have seen or felt a ghost and 48 percent said they believe in ghosts.
As healthcare professionals who deal with life and death on a regular basis, nurses would naturally contemplate questions regarding the human soul—where does it go after the patient has departed?
Can souls of the deceased linger and touch the living?
Whether or not you believe in ghosts, you’ll surely hear many nurse ghost stories during your years of practice. Here’s one of them—my own.
I was working the night shift (11:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.) in a nine-bed residential palliative care facility. The building was fairly new and had been open for several years.
One night, I was sitting in the nursing station. Around 3 a.m., my colleague left to take a break, leaving me alone. All the patients were sleeping, and there were no overnight visitors.
All of a sudden, I heard a noise that I couldn’t place. I popped my head out of the office door and looked down the hall toward the patient rooms. I had thought perhaps someone was up. I saw there was nothing and turned in the other direction, toward the reception area. There, I saw something strange. In an empty room, the office chair moved from side to side as if someone had just quickly gotten up out of it. The place was silent—just the slight noise of the chair as it moved from side to side. I stood and watched the chair move slower and slower until it finally stopped. Then, I felt it. The air around me had been disturbed and I could feel it on my skin.
I could hear no sound coming from the patient rooms, nor from where my colleague was resting. There were no windows open or fans that were on. I even checked to see if anything had fallen off a shelf that may have hit the chair to make it move. I couldn’t find anything. Was it an earthquake? A tremor? A truck passing by? I looked around at all the other chairs that had stood still, the wall hangings that hadn’t budged.
I’ll admit I was spooked. There was nothing that could have caused the chair to move the way it did.
When I think back to that night, I still feel funny. I’m left wondering if someone who had passed away in that facility had come back to check on us. In palliative and hospice care, we know our patients will die. It is our job to help them pass through the stage of dying with as little pain and discomfort as possible. Death doesn’t intimidate us nor does it scare us. Death is a part of life. But what are ghosts?
Do you have a ghost story?
I work in an Aged Care facility and we had a lady who would ring the call bell everyday at 1430hrs for staff to make her a cup of tea. When she passed the bell in that room continued to ring at that same time everyday. When a new Resident moved in to occupy the unit, the call bell stopped ringing. When that Resident moved on and the room was vacated amazingly enough the call bell began ringing again at 2:30pm everyday until again the room was filled. This still goes on to this day, everytime the room is empty!
Yes I am too a nurse and have had some tales to tell also, nothing to explain them just you know you heard or seen things and people don’t believe you , but I know what i had seen. Read yours it was great
I believe! I have had too many experiences working nights at an assisted living and a psych unit at a hospital!
i think, ghost n human in the diferent place… so! ghost please dont disturb me…
I used to be a paranormal investigator… I have always been very spiritual… After realizing a truth about it all, I stopped being involved in what i was doing… Its definatly a grey area, but one thing is certain, those who go out and LOOK for or “hunt” for ghosts are idiots for multiple reasons… period.
I most definitely believe! Working in long term care as a night nurse, there’s just been too many unexplained things happen…chairs sitting in the middle of halls that no one put there, that feeling that someone is behind you but no one is, and the room that not one but four patients absolutely refused to stay in due to a “man in the bathroom”. Yep, I believe!
At one time I worked as a hospice nurse and attended many deaths. One thing I came to deeply believe in was angels. And, no, it was not the narcotics. Even patients who were not on pain meds would tell me about the angels in the room. I could not see them but there definitely was a ‘feel’ to the room that was different: happy and peaceful. I learned that when the angels came it was time to call in the family and usually as soon as they got there, the spirit of the patient departed.
call light ringing when no pt’s in room,fam. members staying over and saying they felt n heard weird voices….
We had a resd. Who would blow his whistle when he needed help , he passed away and every once in a while we hear a whistle or we gad lady that passed away and at night you can hear her crying
I have never experienced a ghost on the unit; but after my mom passed I saw her in the wee hours of the morning in the face of my alarm clock,she was smiling.
CNA
Certified Nursing Assistant
This is a big reason why I’m a bit hesitant to work third shifts! I will work them, but that will always be in the back of my mind.
RN
Registered Nurse
In one of the ICUs in a large urban Catholic hospital for YEARS patients from time to time would report the presence of a ‘little girl standing by the bed’ at night. The descriptions were sporadic but always consistent. The patients all had different neurological or medical/surgical problems.
When the unit was moved to other rooms for renovations the ‘little girl’ went with us. The patients reported the exact same ‘encounters’ with her and she followed us back to the ‘new’ unit when it opened.
No one on staff could recall any event or patient with which to associate our little ‘spirit’. But she seemed to provide some comfort to the patients and was never actually seen by any member of the staff.
We took pride in being the only nursing unit to claim a resident benevolent ‘ghost’!
RN
Registered Nurse
Student
Nursing Student (you can change this when you graduate!)
Is this a serious question? As people who are supposed to be scientifically literate people this is really embarrassing that my fellow nurses couldn’t think more critically than this.
there are things that science cannot explain.
RN
Registered Nurse
To: HolyPeas
Who is to say that science and spirituality cannot ‘overlap’? There is nothing wrong with thinking ‘outside of the box’. For some phenomena there IS no nice neatly wrapped little answer. I rather like what the Director of the Human Genome project said: ‘God can be worshiped in the lab AND in the Church.’
Who are we to say where all of that energy goes when a person dies? I have several family members, all strict Conservative Southern Baptists, who have described ‘visiting and talking with’ a wife or father who just died. They were not afraid, but very comforted by their ‘encounter’, whatever it was!
I’ve experienced some pretty scary stuff inside the OR. One time at around two in the morning while I was circulating a stat surgery, the anesthesiologist asked me to get the forms that he needed to sign. I went to the supply room and tried to reach for a paper that was over my head. While reaching, I felt heaviness on both of my arms as if kids were pulling my arms down. To make things worse, I felt a cold hand running down my back!! I couldn’t move a muscle for a about a minute until someone called my name.
Another story happened when I went to the male’s quarters to get something. The room felt the usual. Not until I was about to reach my bag when I heard a child’s voice crying “daddy, dadddyyy!” I tried to ignore it for a couple of seconds. I had goosebumps all over my body! When I thought and was certain that we didn’t have a child patient at that moment, I run out of room shaking!!