"I Can't Explain This": 49 Terrifying Real-Life Experiences These Nurses Lived Through

I'm not a nurse, just the cleaning staff at a nursing home for a few years. I always thought it was odd how they would tell me they usually keep 1 of the rooms empty unless someone is on the brink of passing away because everyone they put in there passes faily quickly. I'll never forget the time they became fully booked and had to put someone in there who was alert and oriented x3. I would have awesome conversations with her, she was so sweet and easy to get along with...they stuck her in there and she proceeded to basically go crazy and not sleep. She started exhibiting really weird and disturbing behaviors. Wouldn't positively respond to my presence while I was tidying up. She passed after like 2 weeks, it was so strange.

Probably not the sort of thing you are after. But I was on a night shift, other colleagues were on their break and it was just me and one HCA (very tiny Italian man). There was knock on the ward door, and we both looked at each other confused. At that time of night if someone was coming from another ward or department they would always call first. We were also a rehab ward so no acute patients requiring doctors or anything overnight. Once visitors left, we locked the doors and it stayed that way until morning. He told me to stay back and was very protective. It was very sweet!

Our ward was in a separate sort of block to the main hospital and we had access straight to a car park. Our doors had to be locked due to homeless people sometime sleeping in the toilets out in the foyer bit. Anyway, I absolutely followed him! Opened the door and there were police officers in full swat gear, told us they needed to search the ward. They came in, went in all the bays, went in side rooms, used long mirrors to look under patient beds. Did it all virtually silently. Me and my colleague just stood there completely shocked. They left as quickly as they came. Never got an explanation. This was about 16 years ago now. Day shift did not believe us until we got security to show the ward sister the cctv of the foyer.

Former ER RN (still an RN just not in the ER) and the craziest one I have is a small drunk Hispanic male escaping full c-collar and backboard and disappearing. He had wrecked his car, no obvious injuries but you never know. EMS protocol is c-collar and tied down on backboard and go to ER. It’s a busy night, we stuck him in a room and ordered CT scans to clear him. EMS left the stretcher like 5 feet off the ground. Dude was asleep when they left. Business as usual until CT tech comes out and says “where’s the guy in room blah blah?” We’re all confused, he’s like “yeah he’s not there!” Go in the room and sure enough, stretcher is 5 feet in the air, c-collar, backboard and webbing are all present, but no patient. No one witnessed anything or heard anything. Dude straight up vanished. Couldn’t even find him on the security cameras. Don’t know how some 5 foot tall drunk guy got out of there without a trace.

My mum was a nurse on paediatrics and cancer (fun combo as you can imagine). They had a young kid on the ward who was dying.

One of the nurses in particular was very close to the kid and their family. One night she had a vivid dream that the kid came and spoke to her and said it was all ok. They were happy and she shouldn’t be sad. They hugged and she woke up.

When she went into work that morning she was told the child had died in the night.

Needless to say the nursing team were kinda shaken up but also comforted.

My retired last year in her 70s as a med/surg/trauma icu nurse. Let’s just say - if you can imagine it, it happened.

Monitors kept alarming in an empty room all night even after we checked everything twice and found nothing wrong.

Call lights going off in empty rooms or where the patient physically couldn’t press the button.

One specific hallway in long term care has multiple reports of a lady in a black dress staring at people.

People who work in memory care all have similar nightmares about getting locked in a specific room.

Dementia patients in general just have a tendency to act haunted. Ripping up bibles at 2am, staring right behind you and talking to their hallucinations, etc.

I was a PSA and was with my RN walking down the hall to set up an empty room for a new patient. It was July 4th 2017 around midnight. Our unit cleared out at the beginning of the shift and since it was also a full moon on a huge holiday, we were starting to get new admissions. We were walking past a room that had just been cleaned and set up when her and I both stop dead in our tracks. Keep in mind it was only her and I on the floor with maybe two patients on the opposite end of the hall. She asked me if I had heard that and I asked if she had also heard and seen that? What was seen was a little girl in an early 1900s dress with a white apron, pastel pink, and she had pigtails and a little boy in what I can only refer to as ‘Newsies’ attire crouching under the chair begging for help. Now, we’ve had patients pass away in this room but the hospital hadn’t seen children since at least 1917, if at all from what I can remember.

We had to hurry up because the ER was getting antsy about when the new admissions room would be ready so we put it on hold. Fast forward to finishing the room and we go back to investigate the ghost children. The only thing that was off was the air felt heavy and it was freezing more than the AC could accomplish. We avoided the room until a new patient was admitted. Needless to say, this new patient was seeing people in robes carrying crosses…..