Tim, wow... thank you for sharing. You wrote it out so well that I was wishing it was longer. Does your co-worker have any updates on the family or the house?

PAM

Great story! That reads like the synopsis of a novel.

I have been looking for a chance to offer my own 'true' stories that have happened in the last 2 1/2 years since I have moved to rural Maine.

I live in a lovely but impoverished area of mid-coast Maine, a place with a long history for these shores. The hospital where I work 12-hour night shifts has been developed piecemeal over the last 50 years, with parts of the hospital dating back to those days, and virtually all of the building now used for a different purpose than originally designed.

During the day, the hospital is a busy place, hundreds of people coming and going, many visitors, day patients, business meetings, etc. At night the population drops dramatically, just the patients and the staff that cares for them as well as the usually busy Emergency Department.

One night I had to take some filing into the Outpatient Surgery department. This area is down a hallway that is virtually deserted at night. During the day it is filled with patients having routine, relatively simple procedures. They are prepped in this area, and after the procedure they spend a short time recovering here and then go home. At one time this area was a regular hospital ward, with patients lined up in beds around the wall as used to be common but is unheard of these days.

I frequently went there at night to do a bit of filing. It was always dark and deserted, and I easily did the filing just using the emergency lights. But this night when I walked in, I saw a patient in a bed - not sleeping or resting, but thrashing around. I was astounded, not just to find someone there, but apparently alone. I approached the bed, calling for help - I don't remember exactly what I said, but something like, "I need some help here! What is going on?" As I reached the bed I looked away, hoping to see a nurse or aide, and when I looked back...the bed was empty. Empty and made up for the next day, just as it should be.

I stood there for some time, my mind just blank. What had I seen? Had I imagined it? Some kind of prank? Eventually I filed the papers and went back to my duties.

This being Maine, ghost stories are considered fairly normal. The next morning when my co-workers came in and I when I gave report, I included the incident in the night. They listened with a level of attention that I rarely received while passing on the usual mundane facts. One of my co-workers has worked at that hospital for nearly 30 years. After I finished the story, she said told me that area had been a general ward for some years, and then had been an ICU in the very early days when that department was being developed, before it moved to the new and more modern wing.

I'm really not sure what I experienced - a memory, an hallucination, some kind of weird image from the past? Or as Dickens might have said, a bit of undigested potato?

What a scary story Siobhan! I have had "creepy" moments, but nothing as intense as you describe. Do you remember what the patient looked like?

A hospital at night sounds very scary. Come to think of it, most of the people I knew who passed away in hospitals, did so at night, usually after "visiting hours".

(Rural Maine sounds lovely, though as you point, the local economies of such places are usually not thriving.)

Pam, the young woman in the story told me how she wants to see her old house again. Her mother, on the other hand, refuses to even consider it. It may be that the house holds too many bad memories from her divorce, or perhaps she afraid she might hear the ghostly crying from the upstairs bathroom.

Great stories and especially interesting was yours Siobhan, as it was first-hand and I don't think I can remember anyone telling me about something like that that happened to them.
Can you remember, when you saw the person in the bed did you hear anything? Was he/she groaning, or was there a noise of the sheets and blankets being tossed about?

These are very interesting stories; thanks for sharing!

Vee, I don't remember any sound at all. The person and the scene looked totally real; nothing otherworldly about it.

I have another first hand story, I'll post it later. It is a little creepier. And I have one that told to me by a co-worker, so that one is second-hand. Many people in my little hospital have had these experiences.

Here is the second story:

Another night at this same hospital, I was delivering some equipment to the OR, which is normally deserted at night. In fact the entire corridor is deserted at night; just some offices that are not occupied after 5 PM. But it is not unusual to see people there. Cleaning staff, obviously, all of whom I know. And often patients walk there.

I had just come out of the OR and saw a woman at the far end of the corridor, the end that is farthest from the rest of the hospital. She was quite young, had long dark hair parted in the middle and was wearing a Johnny gown. I often recognize patients, as this is only a 32-bed hospital, but I didn't recognize her. Young women are often on the obstetrics floor, and I don't know them, but they usually dont come down to Med/Surg. But young patients often walk the corridors. She seemed to be in distress, however. She was just standing there at the end of the hall, and I had the impression that she needed help. I spoke to her, saying something like, "Can I help you? Would you like to go back to your room?" She turned to me and raised her arms. I had no sense of anything unusual. I walked towards her and suddenly on her gown appeared a large stain in her groin area. I ran towards her; she looked at me; she was white as a sheet. As I got close to her, she vanished.

I wasn't afraid, but I was stunned. I just stood there for a while. I think part of my brain still thought that it was a patient - that I needed to find her or something odd like that. Eventually I went back to my office. Later I saw a housekeeper at the entrance to the corridor, and I asked her if she had seen anything unusual. She asked if I had seen something and I just said yes, but didn't go into details. She said, "I haven't been down there. I won't go down there any more. Evelyn does this corridor, she's not afraid like I am." I said that I hoped the cleaning was already done and no one had to go down there this night. She said yes, that it was done.

The next morning, as I had done before, I told my colleagues what I had seen. The 30-year veteran said that used to be the maternity ward in the bad old days.

What a frightening experience! I don't think I could have calmly returned to work after seeing that.

Siobhan, have you inherited 'second sight' from a distant Scottish ancestor? ;-) It would be interesting to know if you have (pre hospital work) had any similar experiences.

Not so distant - my grandmother had the sight. She was also bipolar and basically a raving lunatic, so no one in my family ever wants to admit to having anything in common with her. Example: "These cookies taste just like Grandma's!" "NO, they DO NOT. They are my own recipe!" Luckily no one in my generation has inherited those mental problems. But I don't have the sight, either. Don't think I want it!

Also, I don't have to do any filing in that part of the building any more. We switched to a completely electronic system. I am happy about that! Not because of ghosts. I found it very annoying to have those sorts of administrative duties take away time from patient care.

I have one more second-hand story, I'll try to post that tonight.