Nursing Can Be Scary

Health Care Professionals work in all kinds of settings: hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics, Long Term Care facilities, prisons, schools, home care.  Each area has its own good and bad.
When I asked Nurses and other Health Care Professionals
“What is the scariest thing a patient ever said to you?”
this is what I got.  From the funny-scary to the violent-scary to the downright creepy-scary, here are a few!
Punctuation added/corrected for clarity.

I was there to do wound care. “Come sit in my lap and let me show you what you can do for me,” with his older son and friend there. I grabbed my stuff and literally ran out.

Absolutely nothing...had a 6 year old on my psych rotation. He would follow me down the hall and hide behind doors watching me through the crack. Scared the crap out of me!

“I see you driving your car and I don't want to ruin my probation.”

“Listen to that beautiful music, it’s like angels singing.” Coded and died fifteen min later.

“Thank you for helping me get off.”

"I’m going to leave and kill everyone on this unit.”

“The voices are telling me to kill you right now.”

“No I can’t get into my bed, she’s already in it.”

“I’m going to rip your arms off and beat you to death with them.”

In a patient’s home, his son (schizophrenia) asks, “who knows you’re here?”

“I only sign my name in blood.”

I worked in a nursing home on LTC unit. Supposedly there was a rumor that patients see a ghost of a little boy before they pass away. One day, I was passing meds to a patient in her room and she said “is that your son behind you?” That patient died that night. So yea I believe that rumor now.

We had ‘the children’ in the LTC I worked. Patients would hear or see kids playing and then someone in that room would pass away.

I worked LTC and we have a little girl ‘in a pink dress.’ Every resident I ever heard talk about her mentioned the pink dress and residents would see her before someone passed away. It wasn't necessarily the person who passed away seeing her but you knew if residents started taking about the little girl someone was going to go.

“You have the mark of the beast!” My first day in clinicals in inpatient psych. I was like no I don’t, I’m Christian!

“If you show up tomorrow I’m going to shoot you from my porch.” I’m a home health nurse and I was calling to schedule an admission into home health.

“When I get out I will find you, rape you and torture you before I kill you.”  I promptly told him (without batting and eye) that if he came to my house, it would be the last crime he ever committed.  He was completely respectful for the rest of the day.

“I will stab you.”

"Who was that little girl standing next to my bed?" 😮 No one had been in that room for a while, especially a kid.

It was dark in the room. Patient said to me, “a little girl is behind you.” I ran out of that room so fast.

"You're gonna die," from an elderly woman with dementia who I never heard speak in like the whole 2 years I took care of her!

As a patient was being anesthetized in the O.R., he said, "Isn't this the stuff that killed Michael Jackson?" 😨

A patient says to me, "Who the hell is that?!" looking at an empty chair across the room. I told him there is nobody here but the two of us. He said, "Who is that lady with the long white hair over there staring at me?" I swear every hair on my body stood on end and I left in a hurry.

“There’s a little girl under that counter watching your every move, and she’s not too happy about it, so I’d watch my back if I were you.”

“What is that black thing with red eyes in the corner?”

A patient known to have a history of mental illness had a scalpel in his room that I happened to find by accident when I picked up his food tray. It was not a brand we have where I work and there is no reason for him to have this so I took it without him knowing for safety reasons obviously. I had to notify security so they could search his room for any other items that were not allowed. I had to go back in his room after security spoke to him and as we were alone in the room he said to me, "You are scared of me aren't you. Yeah, you're scared." As he smiled creepily at me. I had nightmares for days about him.

"I am going to rape you with both parts and make car seat covers out of you."

I had a psych patient who told me the voices in her head told her to throw her grandkids off the bridge.

In a whisper voice, “don’t move they are right behind you!”

“My friend's bringing me my knife.”

"There is a body buried behind the house. Daddy told me never go back there." She was 99 with dementia.

"I've hung your kind before..."

“Do you remember the double murder from a few years ago that never got solved? That was me. I’ll tell you where the bodies are.”

"I can change people into spirits just by looking at them. But don't tell anyone I said that or they will send me to the nuthouse."

“Honey, will you tell those kids in the corner to be quiet. I’m trying to sleep.” I worked night shift and it was just me and the patient in the room.

“I feel like I’m going to die.”  Then she code later in the shift😵😩

“I cut up women and bury their body parts.”

“If I had my pistol, I’d blow your damn head off.”

Older man in ICU had who some dementia starts talking to me about something very random. When I asked him to repeat what he said, he stone cold says, “I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the old lady in the doorway. She looks really sick!”  Yeah, two minutes before he said this, the old, really sick lady across the hall had died.

A man looked at me and said that the children at the end of his bed were there to take him away. He passed away the next morning.

“I want to embalm you,” while laughing.

“Bring those fat thighs over here and wrap them around my face.”

"I want to cut your tits off and staple them to the wall."

“I didn’t mean to kill her”   -a hospice patient.

“I know where to hide a body so know one will find it.”

"My Mother is coming for me tonight." She was 93 and peacefully died during the night.

I work in the OR and one of our anesthesiologist was flying out of town the next day for vacation. We were in the process of putting the patient to sleep when she looked at him and said “your plane is going to crash” and went to sleep. Not one word was said about his vacation to her.

“I feel like I’m going to die,” then proceeds to do so.

“Who's the tall man in the black hat standing behind you?”

“Watch out for the man under my bed.”

I was changing an elderly woman's diaper she asked me if I ever thought about getting a piece?

I had one patient tell me he was a cannibal!

While I was working in detox, a patient came to the desk and said, "the guy in the next bed hung himself."

Answering a call light around 4am, the patient asked if I wanted any heroin. Not sure I heard him right I repeated, “do I want any heroin?” He calmly said “Yeah.” I replied “No.” He said “okay” turned around and went back to sleep!

Giving me a very specific location of a buried black box and telling me to go get it.

I was talking to a  woman on the hospital elevator and she stepped out first, disappearing in front of me as I entered a vacant hall.

“I know where you live.”

"You are my favourite so I may put you in my basement and save you."

"You better have your car swept before you get in it!!!"

"Why is that little girl staring at me?" Nobody else in the room.

"I've got a dead baby in my car."

A totally confused old man said, “I’m going to go to your house and kill you and your family.” His family gasped.

“I saw your name on your ID badge and looked you up on the web. I don’t live far from you.”

"I'm going to eat your soul and shit you to Hell."

“I can stick my penis in my butt."

“You don’t need to check my vital signs, I’m already dead.”

"You know I am Bi-Polar, so that means, I am unpredictable." This statement was followed by an evil grin.

“You look like my ex-wife. No one knows where she is.”

"You know it's just you and me in here and the closed door. We could enjoy this windowless room if you want!"  50s, female patient with loooooong history of ETOH abuse and in for pancreatitis. She followed that with, "I AM newly single, y'know..." I never went back into the room alone.

“Please don’t let me die.”

“Please let me die,” is just as scary.

"My leader needs me back."