“Years ago I was a night shift CNA for an assisted living facility.
I had a resident that had a wild week. She didn’t have dementia/ Alzheimer’s either so it added more weirdness to this situation.
It was about midnight when I was doing my rounds when she burst out of her room holding her giant cross and looked white as a ghost.
I asked her, ‘What’s happening? Did you have a bad dream?’
She replied after she caught her breath that was someone in her room telling her to get out. Now we have wanderers in our facility and I looked around in her room thinking one may have spooked her. I found nothing. She followed me around that night and didn’t go off to bed until four am. I thought that was the last of it. I was wrong.
The next night it happened again. She once again claimed a man was in her room telling her to leave. Once again I checked her room and found nothing.
This was where things got really weird. One night when I was in the back helping a resident my buzzer went off that the front door was opened. I quickly finished up what I was doing and bolted to the front door. Those doors were locked at night. When I found the corner to the front office, I saw her standing outside with the door wide open; she was looking at the sky in awe. I asked her what she was doing as it was two am at this point and she looked at me.
As she put her hand on my shoulder, she said, ‘Death is coming for X. I had to let him in.’
I coaxed her into the building with a cup of decaf coffee and some biscuits. She told me about the man in her room again and how he was making it difficult for her to sleep. Curiosity got the best of me and I asked if she could tell me what he looked like.
I really don’t believe in the paranormal. I feel like everything can be explained, but I can’t explain how she accurately described a resident who lived in her room years ago. He was an angry man who didn’t want to be in the facility in the first place and passed away after refusing his medication. He didn’t like anyone in his room except a few CNAs. She even got his name right.
Her family started getting concerned for her well-being and asked to have her transfer rooms. After she was moved down the hall, her nightmares stopped.
I asked the other PCWs and CNAs if any of them mentioned anything about the previous resident in her old room to which all have stated they didn’t.”
