In a place where life and death are commonplace, it shouldn’t be surprising that hospitals can be some of the creepiest places on earth. Whether it’s remnants of the previous residents that linger, or something more benevolent, I wouldn’t want to work the graveyard shift under any circumstances.
I think I’d get scared to death.
““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.” – Chad
“I heard an interesting story a few weeks ago. Part of the hospital has been rebuilt and faces on to our unit. A nurse doing something near the window looks across and sees two people moving about in one of the clinic rooms (it’s after hours and clinic is shut). She called a colleague over who also saw these two people. They call security who go over and check out the room; nobody there. A while later the nurses again see these two people moving around so they call security. This time the security guys split up – one stands with the nurses while the other one went over to the clinic to check again.
The scary part of this is that the security guys were talking on the radio. The one in the clinic states that the room is empty, but the other security guard standing in our unit with the two nurses could actually see these two people, standing right beside the security guard while he was talking.” – MaryAnn_RN
“My mother-in-law has been a CNA for 15ish years, and like many new CNAs, one of her first jobs was at a nursing home for the elderly. Soon before patients at that nursing home passed, they would complain about “the children outside being noisy”…in the dead of night. There were also patients that would comment on the children playing outside their window in the daytime (when clearly there were no children to be seen).” – iamsookiestackhouse
“OK, this totally creeped me out. I worked at a small privately owned nursing home. A lot of the patients had been there a long time. Naturally, I was silly enough to take the night shift for two weeks right out of school to cover the night nurse who was ill. This place had these old hallway lights that you had to stick a paper clip in this slot on the wall to turn them on and off (real safe right). There was one at each end of the main hallway. I carried the paper clip on my keyring.
So there I am one night, I come in at 11 take report, set up supplies etc. I shut out the lights. The only light is from the lamp on my desk and the eerily red exit sign that cast this red wash all over the walls. Anyway, I’m standing at the med cart stocking med cups and I feel a whoosh of air. It’s winter and no windows are open. I hear a rustling sound and think that it’s the resident in #3 who is restless sometimes at night. His room is about 6 feet from the med cart. Now, being the brave nurse I am lol, I decide to check to make sure he’s not trying to get out of bed. I go over to his room and find that he’s sound asleep. I do a bed check and everyone is sleeping and accounted for. The CNA is in the tv room doing flow sheets. I continue on with stocking.
A little while later I hear the noise again and this time see a figure out of my peripheral vision (they say spirits present themselves in your peripheral vision) pass by me into room 3. This time I’m not so brave. I take the CNA in with me who now thinks I’m nuts. We creep into the room and find the patient sitting up in bed having a conversation with someone who isn’t in the room. When I ask him who he is talking to he tells me the man who is sitting in the chair in the corner. Naturally, there’s no one in the chair. The aide and I settle him down and leave the room.
At report the next morning I’m telling the nurse about what happened. Before I could say who they pt was talking to she said “The man sitting in the chair in the corner right?” Creepy! Later I had talked to the usual night nurse who said it happened all the time when she was on. More than one patient had the same experience. I never did get the name of the mysterious man in the corner. In any case that was the end of my night shift stint.” – Nurset1981
“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.” – MaryAnn
“We had a black girl, about 10 in ICU that was severely injured in a car accident. Lots of brain damage. She didn’t die there but was moved to another facility after weeks and weeks.
After that, I know of 3 older black males, in their 50’s, that, if they were even mildly sedated, would ask about the little black girl with the ribbon in her hair who was sitting at the foot of their beds. One guy said, “she asked me how I was doing, and then got up and walked that way” while he was pointing towards the 2nd-floor window. He paused, a wide-eyed look came over his face, and then he said, ‘But I guess she really couldn’t have left the room that way, huh?”” – Anonymous
“My first job was in a small, 35-bed psych hospital in California. It used to be a medical facility where surgeries were performed and, of course, people died. When I’d work the night shift, I’d sometimes get a phone call from the local police station asking if everything was okay. Sure, everything was fine. All the patients are asleep and it was just a normal night. The police then said that they received a 911 call from our hospital and the extension from where the call was being made was the arts and crafts room (NOBODY goes in there at night, not even staff. It’s always had a creepy vibe and used to be where surgeries were performed). The caller, identifying herself as Satana, was asking for help.
This would happen about once a month or so. Night shift didn’t have much staff, so as supervisor, I knew where all my staff was because I would be the one to help relieve them during breaks. I know with 100% certainty that no staff or patients were the ones calling 911. I know it wasn’t a patient because psych hospital doors are locked and to get to that room, a patient would have to cross 3 barriers of passcode protected doors.” – sensible
“The story of “Rocking Mary.” We closed room 12 in our MICU because just about every patient that has been there since Mary died complaints of seeing a woman in wearing a white habit rocking back and forth by their bedside. Apparently, this nun never makes eye contact…just stares outside the window which happens to be on the patient left side over their head. This window overlooks the hospital cemetery where nuns that have died were buried. Mary was a nun that died of a car accident outside the hospital back in the 50’s. She was only about 30 years old and all patient describes her as a young woman. We all thought that it was the ‘sundown syndrome’.
Anyways, since then room 12 became our storage room where no one goes in by themselves unless it is absolutely critical.” – no-recall
“During clinical at nursing school over the last summer, we went to an older hospital that had been converted to a rehab unit after a hurricane. It is a three story facility, but only the top floor is used.
The elevator would stop on the 2nd floor every time, which was being used only for storage. Being inquisitive I asked the staff and found out that supposedly the 2nd floor is haunted by an old ghost doctor who worked and died on the unit. I just HAD to investigate!
I grabbed a classmate and upon stepping onto the vacant, darkened unit, a call bell was on, we walked in and turned it off. What we weren’t told is that 2nd floor was the old OR floor. It was pretty creepy walking through the old surgical suites.
Well, once we had made an entire trip around the unit we came back to the nurses’ station, which was adjacent to the elevator, as we rounded the corner to face the elevators, the doors to the elevator FLEW open and all the call bells went off, as if to say, “Get out!”” – Sahara311
“My wife had a creepy experience a few years ago. She and another nurse were on duty at an inpatient hospice facility. One of their patients was dying and the immediate family was in the room with him. Well, he passed away and the family said their goodbyes. The family stepped out of the room and my wife and the other nurse went into prep him for other family that was coming. This was about 15 minutes after he drew his last breath and his heart stopped. As they straightened his sheets his right arm rose, bending at the elbow, and he itched the side of his nose with his index finger. Then his arm relaxed in the bent position. Both nurses saw this and my wife turned to her coworker and said, “Don’t you dare leave without me.” They quickly finished their work and left the room together.” – azhiker96
“I had a patient who was CMO (Comfort Measures Only) and quite obviously very close to dying. The week before, my best buddy-cat Pippin had died (and I was pretty broken up about it, still). That being said… I walked into her room, and she said, “Oh, you brought your kitty with you!” I blink at her and say, “What?” Mind you, this was the first time I’d had that patient and I hadn’t discussed my cat with her, having cats or even liking them. Her reply, “Your kitty. It’s right by your foot.” I get that frisson, that momentary shiver in my soul and ask, just for kicks, “Yeah? What color’s the kitty?” She says, “Black with some white.”
Pippin was a black tuxedo cat with white paws and a white bib. And the patient died that night.” – MiddleEarthGardens
“I was working my regular 7-7 night shift in a bone marrow transplant unit with one other nurse. We had 5 patients, and it was about 3:30 am.
She proceeded to tell me that there was a young gentleman who had been in that room who had died a rather gruesome death… evidently this man was slated to go home, but one night (around 4) the nurses heard a thump…the sound of someone falling…they rushed in the room, and this man was in the bathroom, central line out, and blood everywhere. They coded him, but he died right there in the bathroom. No one is sure why he pulled his line, or what had happened, but evidently, the scene was a bloodbath. Horrible, horrible, now here comes the scary part.
A few weeks later, a sweet little old lady is in that room and asks the nurse if someone had died in there. The nurse explained that this is a hospital, and it was likely that someone could have died. Well, the lady says, “I think a young guy died in here.” The nurse asks why, the lady responds “cuz he’s talking to me.” Aghhh!! Ok, I’m not making this up….this lady has a central line, triple lumen. The nurse goes in there later and there is blood everywhere. One of her lines is cut. Not pulled out, but cut. There are no scissors in the room. The lady says “he did it.”” – Paravell
“I was working in the NICU when we had a threat of a tornado. Some Nurses got pulled to go to a sister hospital in town to assist in the disaster plan. When all was over one of the nurses returned with this story: She was assisting the nurses in giving some meds before pulling all into the hallways. Every pt she went to said they already had their meds from that nice nurse in the white uniform and hat. She realized after she left that it been awhile since a nurse has worn a hat. That story revealed the urban legend of Nurse Betty.
The story goes she had an affair with a married MD, became pregnant then agreed to allow him to perform an abortion on her on the 2nd floor OR room.She died and he went to jail. She never left the hospital and was seen frequently. The local newspaper would do an article on her every year around Halloween on her sightings. The hospital has since been replaced with college dorms. Hmmm I wonder if any students have seen her?” – Jdon
“Like most very old hospitals, at one time our hospital was run by nuns. One particular unit had been converted into a sleep study lab area for outpatients tests. One shift in the middle of the night I was watching the video monitor and five patients simultaneously began removing their monitoring equipment. I went into the first room to ask what was going on and the patient said that old nurse with the cap told her the study was over and that she could leave.
All the patients reported the same story.” – Anonymous
“Psychiatric RN here. I worked in an acute care adult unit but was sent to work with the kids one evening shift. It was after 10 pm, all patients were in their rooms and in bed. I heard a child screaming and a psych tech trying to calm him. I ran to the room, the 7-year-old boy was hysterical. He was crying, sweating, and shaking. He said he saw ‘something’. After he settled down, he told me that he saw a white man with gray hair in a hospital gown in his room. While we discussed what he saw, the child froze in fear, tears rolling down his face, he said “Ms., whoawhoawhoathere, be still. Oh, my God, he’s right behind you.”
We decided to address ‘the man’ and tell him that the little boy was scared…the boy said the man turned around and left after that. The only thing anyone in the unit would have heard was the boy screaming at the beginning…all other discussion was in his room and quiet.
Not even 3 minutes later, a 17-year-old male at the end of the hall started screaming. I ran to his room, he was standing on his bed trying to get away from a white man in a hospital gown.” – whoawhoawhoathere
“I had a patient one night who was mentally disabled. She was a young woman with these huge eyes. I don’t know if she always looked like that or if she was just genuinely spooked, but they were open wide. The first thing she said to me when I walked in the room was “She dead. That lady dead”, nodding her head at the woman in the next bed. The woman in the next bed had apparently been dealing with this all day and was fed up. “I’m not dead!”, she yelled. I tried to calm her down, to no avail. The day shift nurse told me she’d been doing that all day. I felt so bad for her roommate. I considered trying to transfer her, but that would just put someone else in the room to put up with it. She did this all night. She would even put her call light on to tell me her roommate was dead.
So this was creepy on its own, but guess who died the next day? It wasn’t an expected death either. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but damn, that was quite a coincidence.” – Hysterymystery
“In the morgue at my hospital, I would always hear knocking coming from inside the freezer. It really creeped me out, especially when the pathologist looked up, grabbed me by the shoulders, stared me straight in the eye and said ‘you hear that? You never open that door when they’re knocking. Never.’
It turned out to be some loose pipes, he thought it was hilarious I didn’t sleep that night.” – eaturliver
“I was rotating nights on a med-surg floor, the furthest room from the nursing station just happened to be the only empty room on the floor. About 11PM the phone in the room started ringing but by the time I got in the room it had stopped. Not familiar with the floor much at night I finished my rounds and went to chart just as the other nurse also was charting and mentioned the phone. She looked at me a little strange telling me the phone couldn’t have rung, ALL phones in patients rooms were cut off at 10PM!
Now I had a mystery. A couple more weeks I again rotated nights, again the phone rang but the regular night nurse was there at the time. The story on this room was so far, every patient for the past month in that room had died, the phone started ringing every night the same time the last patient died, if answered there was no one on the line.” – Straydandelion
“We have a gentleman that we call the inspector. He appears at the end of the long hall (our wings are L shaped). He carries a clipboard in his hand. When he shows up a resident usually dies within the next couple days. We’ve also had residents ring and tell us that there was a man standing next to their roommate’s bed and that we should tell him to leave (no men on nights). The roommate usually dies soon after. And then there’s the children.
Several lucid residents have reported children in the halls at night. There’s a children’s home behind us where children have been abused in the past.” – lpn1313
