Travel nurses travel all over the country. They see many things, from monuments to mountains, but many see and hear things they never expected while traveling. You often hear stories of strange or scary things happening in hospitals. Many hospitals hold their own scary hospital stories.
Working at a new hospital every 13 weeks, they regularly see the circle of life, and some have said to experience things from the afterlife. Below are some scary hospital stories from the members of our Travel Nurse Network group.
Night shifters, we do not recommend you read these at night.
Scary Hospital Stories from Travel Nurses
1.) The Running Water
Once when I was working in an LTC facility, I was walking down the hall speaking to a CNA when all of a sudden, we heard the loud sound of water running in the bathroom. All the patients were in bed already, so I turned to her and looked like what is that? We walked to the bathroom, which you could only enter by key, unlocked the door, and went in. The lights were out, so we turned them on.
The tub water was running full blast into the tub. No one was in there. I walked over and turned the faucet all the way until the water stopped running.
I said why is this water running, everyone’s in bed. The CNA said strange stuff happens in that bathroom and on the floor all the time, including lights turning on and off and stuff moving around or turning on in that particular bathroom.
What’s weird was I heard the water turn on as I was standing near that bathroom and know no one walked in and the handle had to be turned all the way to the right to turn it off.
– Lolita
2.) They’re Still Here
I was working in an ICU and had a patient who would only repeat what was said to her, and was with her all night. One time I went into the room, and she started telling me all the ways she died. “I died because of a narcotic overdose; I died because I took too much insulin. I died on a sunny Sunday afternoon,” etc. Then later, she looked up at the ceiling and said, “They’re all still there.” I ran out of that room as fast as I could. Another time I had a blind patient who kept asking me what time it was all night long. One time I went in to check on him, and he says to me, “It’s the witching hour.” It was 3:33. I walked out.
– Courtney
3.) The Man in The Room
I had a patient admitted into a room at about 0130. He was alert and oriented. He was rolled in on an ER gurney and started freaking out about “him”. Can’t we see “him”? That he’s not going to stay in that room, and he needs to be as far from that room as possible. We switch his room assignment and get him settled. Later in the morning, I asked who “he” is. He says that we need to have the room exorcised. “He” is apparently a very angry dead mid 40’s male.
He didn’t like another man in “his” room. That room was always really cold. Summer or winter. The lights used to come on for no reason…
– Susan
4.) Til Death Do Us Part
I worked at an LTC facility as a night shift aide about 14 years ago. I worked a hall I had never been on before. It was like 1 am, and I saw an elderly guy walk out of a room, down the hallway, and leave the facility. I went to that room, and the resident was awake. Asked her who she was talking to, and she told me her husband always came to visit her late at night. I went to ask the other aide on the floor about it, and they told me the resident was 102yrs old and her husband had been dead for like 20-30 years. Swear on my life that it was an actual person leaving that hall. I could even describe his outfit and hat. Needless to say, I didn’t work that hall much anymore
– Kayleigh
5.) Come Play With Us Katie
I worked at Cincinnati Children’s, and there is a little girl who appears at the bedside of dying children the day before they pass and tells them it’s going to be okay. They even mentioned her as a household name in orientation.
In Indy, at a children’s hospital, we had a patient pass in surgery, but her room was haunted. A little African American boy saw her one night and said, “She looks like me and has one of these and one of these”, pointing to his central line and GT. She also had a central line and GT.
Here in CO, I just stayed at the Stanley Hotel. It’s the hotel that inspired The Shining. Steven King stayed there and felt like his bartender was a ghost and saw two little girls on the 4th floor when there were no other guests. I woke up every 20 minutes to nothing. And had a sock on my perfectly made bed and a luggage tag and earring on my SPOTLESS bathroom. The next morning I bought a book about the hotel hauntings, and my hotel room was in it. Apparently, things go missing in one part of the hotel and show up later in my room. ? They also have a wounded veteran donated flag that has a spot that has started to fade into a silhouette of the original owner of the hotel.
– Katie
6.) Have a Good Night Doctor
I got called in one night for a bad case in the OR, and we were in the middle of it, and I saw a guy in surgeon garb walk past the OR door and continue on towards a dead end. We were at the end of the hall. I walked to the door and couldn’t find anyone. Yelled out hello, and still no one. I had heard that there was a ghost of a surgeon in the OR.
– Melinda
7.) Don’t Swoosh Her
Worked in an LTC where a cute little man would be clear over on one side of this twin bed, and when I asked him to scoot over so he didn’t fall off, he said he didn’t want to swoosh the little girl laying next to him. I guess there used to be kids in this place at some time.
In the same hall, residents would see a lady in black who would go into rooms, and within a day or two, that resident would pass. I didn’t like working in that hall at night!
– Easter
8.) Laughter is Not Always the Best Medicine
I was eating alone in the cafeteria one night, maybe at 1 am. I walked out to the hall to get on the elevator and heard a little kid laughing. No one was anywhere around. I asked security to walk around and look. There was only EVS down there with the doors locked, nowhere near that hallway
– Kari
9.) The Car Accident
I was working an ICU assignment in a small hospital in Wilkesboro, NC, and my patient, who was in the process of dying, started yelling about a car accident and specified survivor man vs woman at the same time there was an MVA coming into the ED where one of the passengers died we were all freaking out!!
– Juan
10.) He Liked My Energy
When I posted on FB that my bedroom lights kept coming on & off, a friend who “sees things” said it was a recently deceased little boy. Unbeknownst to her, I’d worked in hem-onc that week (I float in a peds hospital), and a little boy had died just before my shift. A few days later, I was taking a pic of a curtain I’d made in my daughter’s room, and there were 2 orbs dancing on my screen. My friend said one of them was the boy. She said he liked my energy…
-Maria
11.) LTC Stories
I worked LTC and have tons of scary hospital stories.
- The facility was built where a playground used to be. A little boy died there in the ’30s. Residents who were blind or had Alzheimer’s would regularly “see” a little boy. They always described the exact same kid in the same clothes.
- I had a 90-year-old resident with dementia who hadn’t spoken in years. She was actively dying. She looked behind me and said, “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.” She died exactly 24 hours later.
- There was a resident who never used her own bathroom to have a bm. She always went to the room across the hall. After she passed, people would swear they saw someone going into the room across from hers. Even years later from people who didn’t know the story.
I could go for hours. Ha ha
– Debra
12.) The Land of Enchantment
There are Navajo, Zuni, and Hopi Natives who work and go to the GIMC hospital I work at. Hear about the skins walkers the most! Also, the floor I work on is haunted for sure. In one room, I heard computer keys typing. I was in the room alone. Got up to see where the noise was coming from, and the noise stopped. I sat down, and it started again. I asked a coworker, and she freaked and said yes, an old coworker always did her homework for her masters in that room. She was killed in a freak car accident. ??.
Everyone seems to have heard the computer keys and knew, too, bc I said something another day about room 9, and they were like, “Aww man, it’s her again”. There are ghosts of little children and a surgeon that roam the floor, and moaning is heard from room 5. I have heard and thought I have seen a little girl by room 5 and thought a patient was in the room one night and learned no one was there. I was very freaked out.
They have hired a native Medicine man to come to pray and way safe on the floor too. ?. Also, a cup moved 3 times in the apartment we were in last. Swear! The husband said it, and I was like, lie! And then he started recording, and it did it again. The counter was dry. Something for sure is different on native land in NM.
– Alyssa
13.) The Call
Back when I was a PCA, I worked at mercy hospital in Mt Airy ( which is no longer there). We always had odd stuff happen, but the best was one night we got a random call upon my unit ( I worked on the 5th floor Tele side, and the other side was oncology) from a room on the floor below us. The thing was, on the 4th floor, that side had been closed for a long time, and there was no one down there. The other side was a small rehab. So we get this call, no one is in that room. So I and a few others go down and to that side of the hall. We find the room and walk in to find no one there. It was being used for storage, and there was no call light or phone it that room. No one could explain it.
Other than that, we had call lights that would go off when no one was in that room. We just figured it was a ghost.
Oh, 1 more story. I’m sensitive to the paranormal, and not long after I started working there on nights, the elevator, 9 times out of 10, would open right as I was about to push the button. This happens a lot and only to me. Every time I would step on and say thank you, ghost. – Karin
If you would like to read more scary hospital stories from travel nurses, click here. Have any scary hospital stories of your own? Post them below!
