Terrifying TNS nurse stories

Time to Read

4 minutes

Date

31 October

Category

Blog

Articles

We are celebrating spooky season by sharing some of our nurses’ strange and 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!

Mysterious call bell 🔔
“I was on a night shift in a children’s ward and had just returned from my break at about 3 am. Then, a nurse call bell in cubicle 7 rang. This room is the farthest end from the nurses’ station. I went there and only then did I realise that the room was empty. Oh dear, I got goosebumps all over. I re-set it quickly… I was running 🏃‍♂️ 😅 to go out. 😨 So scary.

This incident happened many times. I felt that every time on my night shifts, after my break, this same room always had a call bell on 😱.”

Ghostly games 👻
“At 4 am in the morning, I was using the toilet in the main block when, with all doors locked and no one else with me, the empty toilet roll cardboard was physically thrown at me, which hit the back of my legs.

There was no one in the cubicle with me!

I picked up the roll, placed it where it had been and said I was tired and not in the mood for having things thrown at me. With this, I felt a cold chill cross my legs as I washed my hands.

I unlocked the door and left the bathroom, locking it back up behind me.

When speaking with colleagues, they told me some bizarre things had happened on that ward….”

The man in the white doctors coat 👨‍⚕️
“I have a fantastic story I would love to share with you. It goes way back to the late 90s and to this day, it still gives me a shiver. I genuinely can’t find a rational explanation for it, so here it goes….

Although I have been a registered nurse for 16 years, I started my career as a cleaner and a healthcare assistant in a beautiful old hospital that dates back to the mid-1700s. Although the building still stands, it is sadly no longer a hospital. On this particular day, I worked on one of the wards as a healthcare assistant, then picked up a shift and cleaned the x-ray department in the basement. I shared the workload with a girl who, to this day, I am still in contact with.

To set the scene, ‘R’ and I were in the department at around 6:30 pm. I was vacuuming behind the reception of the x-ray waiting room and ‘R’ was also vacuuming next door in the clinical measurement department. There was only one way into this area apart from a fire exit at the very far end, which was alarmed. If anyone had pushed the latter open, it would have made a racket and the porter staff would have come running down. As I was vacuuming, I saw a man walk past me, heading towards the clinical measurement department. He was tall, wearing an old-style white doctors coat and neatly dressed. He looked like a solid person heading somewhere with purpose. I knew that all the radiography staff and physicists had gone home two hours ago, so I downed tools and went after him. My intention was to politely inform him that that department was closed. When I went into the next room where ‘R’ was, I asked her – “Where did he go?” To which she stared at me blankly…. I explained what I had just seen, and the colour drained from her face.

Who was he? He literally disappeared! While I was young at the time, I steadfastly stand by what I saw that evening and remember it all with total clarity.”

Fighting death ☠️
“I remember working on a medical assessment unit one night shift and a patient in his 50s had a significant heart event and was subsequently ‘end of life.’ I witnessed him for the whole 12 hours of my shift, as he saw otherworldly beings and was punching and kicking out constantly as if fighting ‘death.’ There was another patient opposite him in the room who told me he was calling out to the entity not to be taken because he knew he was heading to hell.

I have also witnessed this behaviour in another patient of mine over the years; they have always stuck with me!”

The other side of the door 🚪
“Overnight, I heard a patient screaming. We ran there and she told us, looking like a ghost, “a man is standing behind the door.”

You can imagine the general panic attack!”

The monitor 🖥
“At the beginning of my career, I worked in a respiratory support ward, including the actual ward and a day clinic for follow-ups. The clinic, of course, is empty and closed overnight.

One night, I went to the clinic to pick up some stuff and noticed that the nurse station’s main monitor was showing a trace for room 43. An empty room. The monitor showed an ECG trace with a fast heart rate (HR 127) and saturation. It was Saturday night and the last patient left on Friday afternoon. I carefully went to that room and there was no one in but the monitor was also on in the room itself. Still a mystery!”

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!