We all know that working in medicine isn’t for the faint of heart. It means regularly seeing people at their lowest, when they’re sick and in serious pain. That alone is hard to stomach. But what many of us may underestimate is that the job can also get genuinely scary.
Users on Threads and Reddit asked nurses and doctors to share the creepiest things they’ve ever witnessed, and the answers were enough to fill a horror novel. We gathered some of the most chilling ones below. Just be warned that they contain disturbing details, so maybe don’t read this one on your lunch break.
#41
I was working in a nursing home on graveyard shift on a locked Alzheimer's/ Dementia/ Psychiatric unit, alone because they couldn't possible afford to have a second person back there with the mentally unstable residents. We had a new lady who had mood swings like a roller coaster. Seriously, if you didn't like her, you could wait for five minutes for her next personality to come out and play.
That night she was very agitated and kept complaining about the little girl singing. I'm all, "I'll try to get her to stop." to play into her world so she doesn't try to k**l me or something (she recently tried to strangle my friend). After a few minutes she was all happy and wandering around the dining room and back into the living room. So I turned on the TV for her to watch something on TV Land.
I am filling out my charts for the night and keeping an eye on her. She seemed pretty mellow at the time. The power goes out and I have a mini panic attack because I am terrified of the dark. I hear her shuffling through the dining room and she is humming. I thought that was a bad idea as she could trip in the dark or run into something, fall, break a hip... so I fumble for my phone and use the back light to find her. But I couldn't see her. The lights come back on and I am staring at an empty dining room trying to figure out where she went.
I go into the living room and there she is sitting in the living room right where she had been when the lights went out. She was all, "The TV went out. Turn it back on for me, okay?" And then starts looking behind me and asks "Did you get her to stop singing?"
I carried a very bright flashlight after that. I had a lot of weird things happen but that was the creepiest I can think of.
That night she was very agitated and kept complaining about the little girl singing. I'm all, "I'll try to get her to stop." to play into her world so she doesn't try to k**l me or something (she recently tried to strangle my friend). After a few minutes she was all happy and wandering around the dining room and back into the living room. So I turned on the TV for her to watch something on TV Land.
I am filling out my charts for the night and keeping an eye on her. She seemed pretty mellow at the time. The power goes out and I have a mini panic attack because I am terrified of the dark. I hear her shuffling through the dining room and she is humming. I thought that was a bad idea as she could trip in the dark or run into something, fall, break a hip... so I fumble for my phone and use the back light to find her. But I couldn't see her. The lights come back on and I am staring at an empty dining room trying to figure out where she went.
I go into the living room and there she is sitting in the living room right where she had been when the lights went out. She was all, "The TV went out. Turn it back on for me, okay?" And then starts looking behind me and asks "Did you get her to stop singing?"
I carried a very bright flashlight after that. I had a lot of weird things happen but that was the creepiest I can think of.
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8points
#42
In an ICU we had two patients , months appart, with delirium, same room. Both called me in to ask about the girl standing on her head in the corner.
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8points
#43
Had plenty of dying patients who saw angels and family members before passing. One day I had a patient who saw the opposite! CREEEEEEPY!
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8points
#44
Geriatric nurse here.
Had a resident on hospice and getting ready beginning to transition. She had been talking about seeing her husband at night for about a week at this point. She was very reassured however with dementia it was difficult to distinguish these visits between confusion or actually taking place. She would have one sided conversations all the time. One morning at the end of my shift - went in to give her her meds and asked how she slept. She says oh not much "Edgar" has been here alllll night. I turn around after making sure she is all tucked in and see this 6" figure with black suit and top hat standing at next to the bookshelf at the end of her bed. Needless to say I did last rounds with my CNAs. Resident passed away just 48 hours later. Another time one of my residents calls down several times and asked me to come up and close her blinds - because the people outside kept tapping on her window asking to come in and waking her up. She lived in the 3rd floor - no balcony. Lots of good stories these two just came to mind.
Had a resident on hospice and getting ready beginning to transition. She had been talking about seeing her husband at night for about a week at this point. She was very reassured however with dementia it was difficult to distinguish these visits between confusion or actually taking place. She would have one sided conversations all the time. One morning at the end of my shift - went in to give her her meds and asked how she slept. She says oh not much "Edgar" has been here alllll night. I turn around after making sure she is all tucked in and see this 6" figure with black suit and top hat standing at next to the bookshelf at the end of her bed. Needless to say I did last rounds with my CNAs. Resident passed away just 48 hours later. Another time one of my residents calls down several times and asked me to come up and close her blinds - because the people outside kept tapping on her window asking to come in and waking her up. She lived in the 3rd floor - no balcony. Lots of good stories these two just came to mind.
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7points
#45
I'm a nurse at a nursing home and since I'm one of the few RN's I often pronounce people d**d. When it's someone else's patient I'm fine, just pronounce and bounce. But if it's someone on my unit that I had conversations with it's really creepy. I get the feeling like they are going to come back and try to bite me. The worst is when someone just died and you can still hear blood flow in their chest but no heartbeat.
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7points
#46
Came on shift and went into my first pts room- they asked me why they let the little boy run around throughout the night. They were confused so I didn’t think anything of it. Went to see the next pt in the room next door and they said “it’s great to be able to see children happy and playing throughout the hospital.. but the little boy kept me up pretty late.” This pt was A&Ox3… the floor I was on used to be paeds years before this.. still gives me chills lol
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7points
#47
Not spooky, but my patient in the ICU was staring up at the ceiling and said he saw Jesus.
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7points
#48
Sitting at the computer charting next to an isolette in an area that had a few spooky moments. Something whispered loudly my name next to my ear. 👂
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7points
#49
Stuff randomly flying off shelves after I’ve been sitting there for hours has been common enough to make me know that there are ghosts for sure for sure
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7points
#50
We had a Patient on the ICU for roughly a year. It was our longest patient stay to this day.
She had Guillain Barré and couldnt move a single muscle. She used to click her tongue very loudly when she needed something.
It was kind of a running joke because it was so loud for a normal tongue click and she would call very often during a shift.
She died after a year and it was weird, she kinda lived there, we knew everything about her and her family, felt weird to empty the room.
In the next few weeks lot of us heard her clicking her tongue at nightshift. We laughed it off but it was so many times and so many different nurses it was creepy.
She had Guillain Barré and couldnt move a single muscle. She used to click her tongue very loudly when she needed something.
It was kind of a running joke because it was so loud for a normal tongue click and she would call very often during a shift.
She died after a year and it was weird, she kinda lived there, we knew everything about her and her family, felt weird to empty the room.
In the next few weeks lot of us heard her clicking her tongue at nightshift. We laughed it off but it was so many times and so many different nurses it was creepy.
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6points
#51
I SO want this thread to blow up. I used to have a friend who was a nurse and apparently, seeing some figure that May or may not be d***h coming for patients just before they croaked was not unusual.
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6points
#52
After a women had passed away in one of our private rooms we had to move a particularly disruptive man into it. It was temporary to give the other ward patients a break. He had to be moved back quite quickly because he kept shouting for us to 'help this women leave! She's been waiting all this time and she wants to go home now!' There was no way he could of known about the previous occupant.
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5points
#53
I was rolling a lady out of a nursing home, who had trouble breathing. When we get her in the back of the ambulance and I start setting up leads on her, she grabs my wrist and pleads "you have to get me out of here." She then lays back on the cot and dies in front of me.
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5points
#54
Not me but my male co worker was taking a body down to the morgue when the body began to levitate off the gurney
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4points
