More Spooktacular Stories From the Medical Field! What’s Your Scary Story?

It was 1989, 2 RNs
brought a deceased person down to the morgue. They reported that after they closed the freezer door they could hear noises like moaning and sighing. They scrambled back up unit 34B basically screaming like 2 little girls and had one of the physicians go back down to the morgue and open the freezer and shroud and re-pronounce him dead. The MD reports the patient deceased (again)-me, think I am working with two RNs, registered nuts! One was the Union steward so what could I say except, “very interesting”.

A common story told on night shift at our hospital was about a man who had coded in ICU and was revived, but wasn’t the same. His nurses talked of how he didn’t speak, but followed their every move with his eyes and laughed a strange little laugh. 3 days later he coded again and was not able to be revived. I had this story at the back of my mind when one night on telemetry, a pt in recurrent Afib suddenly went to Vtach and then flat line. I went with another nurse to check on him and he was pale and unresponsive. He was a dnr so the other nurse went to call the doctor while I tried to calm the other pt in the room. As I pulled the curtain between the beds, I heard a noise behind me and turned to see the formerly deceased pt sitting up and looking around with wide eyes. My first thought was, “who’s in there?” And I tentatively asked him how he was feeling. He said he had had a feeling like he couldn’t breathe. About now the charge nurse came in exclaiming that the patient was showing Afib again, and was amazed to see him sitting up. She kept asking him if he’d seen a light, but he just repeated that he felt he couldn’t breathe. He died for real a couple weeks later.

I was working the night shift on a pediatric unit with two wonderful nursing assistants, it was 4 am and time for q4h vitals signs to be taken, after entering a patient’s room, my nursing assistant came out of the room screaming that there was a ghost in the room.
The patient, who was in for a surgical procedure, had recently lost her mother, according to my nursing assistant, the ghost was female and hovering over the patient while she slept. We believed it was the patient’s recently deceased mom.

Beware. Ever play the game, “I have a secret to tell you”. I played this in grade school sitting around in a circle on the play ground. A benign busy story begins and the attempt is to repeat it but it always comes back changed and sometimes worse. Is this a human condition? My story begins with hard work, success, belonging to some of the largest healthcare facilities in the country. I earned my way and used my breaks. Eventually, someone needed my help and I helped them, donated to them, handed them money on the side of the road. I was giving, modest, humble. I helped my parents and harbored no ill will though ours is a broken family. I thought no one could derail me as I was good and shined and giving to others less fortunate. I was wrong. I was derailed by way of a set up. I was aware prior to the real event that on two prior jobs, someone was working against me. I did not know who or why. No one would tell me. I realized later these same people were at work to discredit me. Bosses instantly flipped on me and peers looked at me and walked sideways with long knowing looks. I was asked to deny my experience and education as real by these same educated professionals. I refused, but was hurt and puzzled. I went through my connections and called. I found something. I was told to guard my identity. Someone who matched my identifiers and industry committed crimes and then disappeared. I was told they were not highly degreed. The setting was also not one that I worked in but I realized several previous jobs attempted to put me into that setting. I also remember a degree of mine was stolen as I interviewed for the next level of degree at university in the late 90s. I did not report it as I was able to get a replacement. People sell degrees, I am told. People do a lot of things. I got tied to this place not by working in it just by request to submit my information as a maybe from an employer two years after working there without concern. I was also told by a rival that may have inferred I lived in the town the crime was committed in though this was untrue it stuck to me somehow. After that, the attack was on. I was rebuffed, ignored, treated with disdain, later told I was fake, not a degreed professional, and this by peers, directors that heard I could not do the job despite being credentialed/experienced/able to demonstrate. This grievous ideology spread and was held as a judgment against me. HR did not help me nor the legal department. I did not know how to respond as I understood this was unreal, unfounded, and it dawned on me, I was a victim of stalking across state line into the next position and next with a vengeance. I had no chance of keeping a position. My great career path is no in ashes. Why would someone do this? Perhaps it was they needed job confirmation of cracking the toughest case at the cost of an innocent? Who cares when their career will sky rocket after all the HHS is stating they are on a witch hunt to leave no rock unturned. That in itself is an invitation that should not be put out there as a challenge to social paths/great manipulators. This is happening. People want pay back from someone, a target, for a wrong. We see it on TV, a Retribution at great cost to life, health, liberty, community, a country. They are adopted into a group, a mob to deal out dues and they are eager and manic as they act against the target (s). History repeats itself for us humans as we do not learn or listen. We instead have personal agendas that politicians use to ride the flow so they can piggy back their agendas especially while no one looks. Carnivals use the tactic. Mostly, in my case this was gossip at the severest though I have stood physical threats, set ups to discredit me. People believe if not true there is a course of action but there is not when all avenues are blocked depending on the mouth it comes out of real or fiction. I am telling this story as people need to stop and realize that the bill of rights is being blocked for many citizens as is due process for the sport of catfishing, setting up of the innocent in the name of vigilante justice. If there is a slight stink, forget it, it is on especially if there is a rival or rivals. This is viscous and involves all industries and groups. Social networking, media, mouths. The royals did the same in Ancient England, socialist nations practice this, and bullies do the same in grade school. This is real life and the US free world, without constitutional protections of citizens, and this is our reality. The Patriot Act has allowed this form of attack since its passing after September the 1st, 2001 to target US citizens as possible terrorist or criminals. Did you know? Take a care not to act on gossip against others no matter whose mouth gives reign to it as this is a true sin, a true evil, and socialistic in the barest form, a mob mentality, not unlike Hitler`s regime. The targets can be any race, age, gender, culture, social economic status, educated, uneducated, homeless or not, religious, agnostic. This is not any different than physical assault as it is psychologic warfare against a target who does not see it coming and has no idea of the variety of people willing to part take. Our society has become cruel though civilized and dumb in their reality need to gossip, belong, reach out for connection, and need for vigilante street justice without due process and with a disregard for their fellow human being no matter being in healthcare there is no feeling or compassion for the targeted. This is a truly scary story I have outlined as all can be lost forever. I once led a blessed life naturally as I had talent, looks, a brain, health. This is all sliding now. I do not know what I will do and the future is gray and dark for me yet I live on, mostly isolated as I am jobless, without healthcare despite ACA I have no income to spare, without a future, without anyone willing to be my champion, and I am not hateful, or forgiving, just tired, and watchful. I am not great at talking to God but I am trying and I believe and do not blame as there is a design here. Good luck, God Bless, and have a care if you have real compassion for people of any description. Think before you open your mouth and do something really scary and creepy to another. Try not to take advantage. Try to love as you love yourselves and get help if you do not love yourself for God Sake. Forgiveness is hardest but necessary to become better. I am trying. Thanks for listening to a true scary story.

Virginia Harris RN. I was working in CCU on 3-11 shift. As luck would have it we had 2 codes at exactly the same time. One was an elderly lady in room 5 and my pt was a 44 yr old Downs pt.in room 1. My pt made it through the code but the lady didn’t but the most interesting point of this story was the next day I returned for a 7-3 shift and Johnny kept asking me where the nice lady went. When questioned about the lady he said we were walking up steps toward a bright light and the lady said she had to go on but I had to come back. He went on to describe his friend and certainly fit the gal in rm 5.

32 years ago, while in my last month of nursing school for my ADN, I was assigned to a Geriatric/Psych floor on swing shift. I had a full assignment of patients but one I will never forget. I had completed his care for the evening and given his evening meds. I turned out his lights and left the room. A few minutes later his call light came on. He asked me to turn out the lights. I assured him the lights were out and again left the room. A few minutes later his call light came on again. He described the light as being so bright in his eyes. I turned out the lights and closed the door while in the room and did not see any bright lights that would be in his eyes. This time I placed a folded hand towel over his eyes, tucked him back in, shut out the lights and closed the door. This still repeated a couple more times until finally no more complaints about the bright light. I sat down to chart. The night shift nurses would always do a walk through after report, but before evening shift left, to make sure all was well and they had no questions. I was exhausted and trying to finish up my charting when the scariest night nurse of all marched up to me and said “Was the patient in bed (whatever) supposed to die?” I stammered “Supposed to die? Well no, but he is a DNR. He was fine just a little while ago. His only complaint was the bright light in his eyes and I couldn’t figure out how to make it go away.” She looked at me like I was the stupidest person even placed on this Earth. I got goose bumps. The other nurses knew and now I did too.

When I began my career in the mid-1970’s, jobs for RNs were far and few between so I accepted a position in a state psychiatric facility. 25 years before, a patient had hung himself in one of the rooms on my ward, and because of the associations, no patients were ever allowed to be in that particular room again. It was converted into a huge storage closet for the ward. Then our census went up. We had no place to expand, so the storage closet became part of the men’s dormitory once more. Beds broke, springs poked though perfectly new mattresses, water leaked from walls and ceilings that had no pipes nearby, shelves fell off the walls, doors fell off cabinets. Patients’ clothing would be found in heaps every morning in the bottoms of closets, whereas the night before they had been neatly on hangers. The night staff took to placing their chairs in the hall outside of the room to find out about the shenanigans, but were never able to see anything. Yet the problems were real and continued. Finally, Administration ordered the room converted back into a store room. Once that was done, the leaking stopped, furniture remained intact, and shelves stayed up where they were mounted, etc. The general consensus was that the ghost wanted to be left alone and when his former quarters were suddenly made a part of the dorm, he rebelled. Apparently, he preferred a private room.

My story is about angels in real life. but it was really scary. I was moonlighting as a phlebotomist in a lab in a hospital in San Diego, while I was in the Navy. I worked weekend nights for a few years. I had friends around the hospital that I would see during my blood drawing trips. One night, there was a lab student working late. I was ready to leave the hospital and head home. I was on the elevator heading for my car with that student. I told the people on the elevator that I was going back home to New Orleans and that I had missed saying good bye to a couple of nurses that worked in ICU. There was a lady on the elevator that I did not know. I told her that I hated to miss seeing those nurses; and she told me that I should go to the ICU one more time to see it I could catch them. So I headed to ICU instead of to the parking lot. Then I headed back to the lab to see one other person. When I got there, there was all kinds of activity. It seems that the lab student that was on the elevator with me, went to his car and was stabbed and killed. I went back to ICU to see if my friends there had heard about it and they almost fainted when they saw me. They had heard that someone from the lab had been killed in the parking lot and they thought it was me. That was when I realized that it could have been me, if I hadn’t gone back to ICU. My Angel on the elevator changed that night for me; and she changed my life from that moment on. Thanks for looking down on me…….

The hospital in which I first began my career had an old wing, as most hospitals do, but this hospital had been nearly destroyed by a fire over a hundred years prior and only this wing remained. One room had a history of a reflection of a nurse appearing in the window, complete with white cap and gown. It seemed that she was entering the doorway from the hall, directly across from it. You would turn to speak to her but no one was there. She was seen by many people, staff and patients.

As a new nurse working on a Telemetry unit during one 11 to 7 shift, I received a confused patient in 4 point restraints that spoke no English. When ever I would enter the room to check on him, he would call out two words in a type of chanting melody. “Jesus Christo”. Along with his eerie chanting the low night lights in the room would go from dim to light, back to dim to light, over and over. Between the sound of his chanting, who he was chanting for and the repetition of the lights, it was a totally freaky experience.

I was working at St Johns in Joplin MO, in a Peds unit. Locked unit with wooden doors and security badge required to get in/out. My tech and i are chilling on 10/13, a FRIDAY, watching a scary movie at the desk while our one patient slept.
Suddenly, a man walked around the nurses station. Dressed in summer clothes, blonde hair, carrying a beach bag. We stared, confused, because we KNEW who was in the unit. He waved..we waved back, confused. We watched him walk around the nurses station and head for the entrance. We look up as we hear the door shake, towards the camera screen…and nobody was there. The camera then flipped itself to the outside hall, as if the door had opened (it didn’t, but SHOOK like it had been pushed)…nobody. I called security and asked them to come check and they said the unit used to be a CVICU and that the man was a patient who’d died 25 years ago.

In our freestanding ER, we heard a baby cry along the side hall. Those rooms were empty.