Spooktacular SNG nurse stories

Time to Read

6 minutes

Date

31 October

Category

Blog

Articles

We are celebrating spooky season by sharing some of our nurses’ strangest and most frightful experiences whilst on shift.

From the chilling cries from an unoccupied room to the strange, inexplicable coincidences that send a shiver down your spine, here are the scariest stories you shared with us!

Night-shift terror 😳
“I was doing a night shift, taking the handover for the ward as I was coordinating. I was sitting facing out towards the ward and the door in the corner room was moving! I stopped and pointed it out to the other nurse and we both started to freak out! No windows open, nothing. We slowly walked towards the door, clinging onto each other, saying how haunted hospitals must be… started talking at the door, scared to open it, with no reply. So, I slowly approached it and peeked around and screamed. The other nurse screamed and the patient behind the door sorting his stoma bag screamed! I was on edge for the rest of the night!”

The man in the black hat 🎩
“As a student nurse, I looked after a lovely young girl with learning difficulties. She kept telling me about a man who visited her at night. She described him as wearing a black hat and long coat. I mentioned it to the nurses on the ward. They were pretty alarmed and appeared worried about the girl. She died shortly afterwards and they told me that many stories had been told of this man visiting those about to die. He was apparently a Victorian undertaker who had previously worked at the hospital.”

Mysterious night check 🩺
“The ward where it happened was all private rooms with en-suite bathrooms. A nurse on a night shift was going around, room by room, at 4 am doing the regular vital signs checks. In one of the rooms, the patient told the nurse that somebody already did the checks that night. The nurse was puzzled and asked her colleagues if one of them had already done the checks on that room. Everyone swore they didn’t. That bizarre incident was the talk of the ward the next day. Then, one of the older attendants shared a story of a nurse many years ago who went into the toilet of that room and committed suicide. And this was not the first time that that ghost nurse was seen in that ward on a quiet night doing her rounds.”

Old fashioned roses 🌹
“A lovely lady passed away peacefully in my care. I performed last offices.

From nowhere, the room was flooded with an overwhelming beautiful smell of old-fashioned roses. The family visited the next day with a bouquet of scented roses – they had been her favourites and she grew them. We tucked one into her hands as she left our care.”

Mystery nurse 👩‍⚕️
“I used to do home care and looked after a nine-year-old boy who was severely disabled. Whilst on night shift, I was sitting on a chair; when I looked up, a figure was walking towards him. The figure was dressed in an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform, white dress and white hat. I got up and she continued until she was standing over him. When I got to the bed, she disappeared!

I don’t usually believe in that sort of thing, but it was so real!”

The haunted stairwell ❌
“One of my colleagues was using the back stairs to go to another ward when she was approached by a lady asking for the way out. She gave the lady directions and when she turned round to say something else, the lady had vanished. My colleague was so startled that she turned round quick and broke her wrist off the banister. Sadly, my colleague is no longer with us, but we had many a laugh about it.”

Those things that can’t be explained 🔮
“While working in an ICU, I looked after a patient in a side room. The patient was completely sedated and paralysed. The SaO2 wire started to swing like a skipping rope and went quite fast. It then slowed down and finally stopped moving.”

Back from the dead 💀
“My story is years old from when I was an auxiliary nurse. The ward was split in two, a smaller side and a bigger side. I was to work on the smaller side, but the handover said that a patient on the bigger side had passed away and they were waiting on the porters. I carried on with my work. Time passed, the senior nurse on the bigger side asked me to help wrap the body as it wasn’t correctly done. I said yes and we headed to the room.

She backed out of the room and said she was going for a sheet. I was in the room myself with what I thought was a body…..unknown to me, the body was gone and the male auxiliary was lying on the bed with a sheet over him. He then started to move – I screamed, I got the fright of my life! Needless to say, they all had a laugh at my expense😳🤣.”

What’s under the bed 🛏
“It was the night of Halloween, just after 11 pm. The nursing home was quiet, and the residents were sleeping. We were all sitting in the main lounge having a cup of tea.

We then decided it was time to do a round to check on the residents. Someone was to remain in the lounge until we came back. So, a colleague and I covered the west side. We would start from the top and work our way down. We went into the first 2 rooms and everyone was sleeping. We went into room 13 and Sarah began whispering that someone had seen a ghost in this room. I looked at her, smiled, and whispered not to worry as we had never done anything wrong and would be alright. As we walked up to the resident’s bed, Sarah asked me if I had heard that noise. I said ‘What noise?’, and told her not to be silly.

As we approached the bed, the resident’s covers were over her head. As I went to remove the covers from her head, someone grabbed my ankle from beneath the bed. I screamed and my colleague started to run to the door. At that time, the covers were removed – to reveal balloons and pillows on the bed, but no sign of the resident!

I shouted for my colleague to come back – we had lost a resident! I looked under the bed and another colleague was trying not to laugh. And then, there was a knock on the inside of the bathroom door. My colleague opened the bathroom door, and the resident was stood laughing at us!

We can’t wait until next Halloween to return the favour and spook the nurses that caused havoc the night of Halloween!”

The buzzer 🛎
“A buzzer was going off in a closed bay numerous times. Electricians checked it over and there was no fault to be found. Needless to say, we were all a bit spooked!”

Nurses have a job that exposes them to many strange and frightening things and our Guild nurses have certainly seen a fair share of them!