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Hospital Happenings Of The Supernatural Kind

Isn't it at least interesting that such reports originate from scientifically-trained medical personnel, doctors and nurses, serving on the cutting edge of life and death for eight or more hours a day?

Just imagine how the Skeptics would crow if the results were the opposite - "Life's nothing but a freak chemical process. When you die the worms get you and that's it."

When I have a question about the sea I find that I usually get better and more reliable results by going to an oceanographer than to somebody who's never been outside the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
HenryFort said:
I will say, Ive heard incredibly detailed stories from close and trusted friends that have subsequently turned out to be embellishments of modern folk tales, to my own and their embarrassment.
But then can we ever believe anybody about anything?
Thats up to you. The whole point of IHTM, as I see it, is that we can ask questions of the person who experienced the event, or, if the event is related by a third party and circumstances allow, can try an get answers back through the original poster.
 
Yup, it is hard to say how we could prove anything!

I believe you though. I have seen extremely weird things which appeared normal at the time, and only seemed bizarre afterwards, when I looked back and thought 'Did I REALLY see that...' :shock:

Like the invisible fly...
 
Clearly you didn't see the invisible fly. Unless it was a trouser fly of course, then its absence would have made its presence obvious. Or something.
 
Yeah lets get back behind the mule an start ploughing, Christmas is over and done for so lets hear Diabolik8s sisters "weird shit", this board has been way too tame of late so hike up the freak factor.
 
HenryFort said:
The whole point of IHTM, as I see it, is that we can ask questions of the person who experienced the event, or, if the event is related by a third party and circumstances allow, can try an get answers back through the original poster.

I have no problem with that. My Fortean philosophy has always been "Believe everything in the main but be a skeptic in every individual case." However, that's skeptic in the classic sense of the word, willing to be convinced by evidence, not the much more modern sense of "believe nothing and if 'evidence' is produced, laugh at it."

But the point I was originally attempting to make is - does the fact that a paranormal report mirrors an existing Urban Legend automatically prove that the report is a hoax?

If Nurse Whitherspoon tells me that she saw a ghost standing by the diathermy machine and I then track down an Urban Legend which says the same thing, might it not merely indicate that ghosts are commonly seen near diathermy machines?

Or if Nurse Witherspoon has herself related her diathermy ghost encounter numerous times over a period of years, might not she be one of the sources OF that Urban Legend?

I've heard enough of these stories from hospital physicians and RNs that I find only two conclusions possible - either the stories are true (at least as the percipients remember them) or else when we put ourseleves into the hospital our lives are thereafter in the hands of a wholly outrageous and possibly even criminal gaggle of COMPULSIVE
LIARS
.

Occam's Razor tells me to go with the former.
 
Although my acquaintance with health professionals is limited, those I have come into contact with seem more open to this kind of stuff than other scientists. Maybe working long hours through the night in literally life or death situations predisposes one to flights of imagination, or perhaps proximity to the near dead or newly deceased provides medics with a special insight into the borderlands.

I wouldn't diss foaf tales simply because they lack Dawkinsian belts and braces which in any case will never provide enough support. Doctors signing off cadavers are unlikely to distrupt the through flow of grief and admin because the attendees saw Auntie Shirl's shade depart her corpse. There's a weight of printed anecdote that suggests nurses in terminal wards do sometimes experience the inexplicable. If Dr. Jenkins wrote up what he saw he'd be more likely to end up with stress councelling than be cited as an expert witness.
 
colpepper1 said:
Although my acquaintance with health professionals is limited, those I have come into contact with seem more open to this kind of stuff than other scientists.

My late Dad's hospice unit floor physician's statement that "You have to understand.....we....see....things....here," with the supervising RN nodding her head in agreement, is surely indicative of personal experience and NOT regurgitated Urban Legends.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
colpepper1 said:
Although my acquaintance with health professionals is limited, those I have come into contact with seem more open to this kind of stuff than other scientists.

My late Dad's hospice unit floor physician's statement that "You have to understand.....we....see....things....here," with the supervising RN nodding her head in agreement, is surely indicative of personal experience and NOT regurgitated Urban Legends.

Yeah, knowing that my nurse friend of 25+ years is such a no nonsense kind of gal (and that as an agnostic, she has no pony in the religion race) I believe what she tells me she's seen. Some of other stuff she's shared has been sad, funny, amazing, and out right weird.

I really like this community, and I don't want to disrupt this board anymore. Please, let's carry on.

JandZmom
 
jandzmom said:
and I don't want to disrupt this board anymore. Please, let's carry on.

You're not dispruting this MB. This MB is THE place for discussions, squabbles, etc etc. But the consensus is that somethings do happen and its up to us to TRY and find out what that something was and why it did happen. Otherwise we might aswell, close the MB & mag down and believe what we are told by those in authority what to believe in... :)
 
jandzmom said:
Yeah, knowing that my nurse friend of 25+ years is such a no nonsense kind of gal (and that as an agnostic, she has no pony in the religion race) I believe what she tells me she's seen.

From the early 1970s on I've been meeting an ever-increasing number of atheists and agnostics who stronly suspect that "life after death" exists as a natural function of the physical Universe. Although I'm a fairly orthodox Christian, when I meet such individuals I flop myself down at their feet and listen, because I figure what they're going to share with me didn't come from some cut-and-dried university philosophy text.

I really like this community, and I don't want to disrupt this board anymore.

For Heaven's sake, you're more than welcome here. That's why we exist - to be "disrupted" by increasing knowledge. I've been downloading your reports into my own extensive "Survival" files and have vastly learned and benefitted from them.
 
Call it as you see it guy. A good 95% of stuff on the board is no doubt wishful thinking, misperception or plain tomfoolery. It's the other 5% that make it so intriguing.
 
i'm off to hospital for an op tomorrow...

who knows on which side of the great divide i might end up...? :shock:



(but i have a list of people i want to haunt... :twisted: )
 
rynner said:
i'm off to hospital for an op tomorrow...

who knows on which side of the great divide i might end up...? :shock:



(but i have a list of people i want to haunt... :twisted: )
Ooh. Hope all goes well rynner! :likee:
 
Rynner, I certainly hope that this is nothing terribly serious.

I've just said, aloud, a prayer for the success of your operation.

I know this is an anonymous list, but surely God can find you. <g>
 
I would be honoured to be haunted by Rynner. Honoured.
 
escargot1 said:
I would be honoured to be haunted by Rynner. Honoured.
But hopefully he wont be in a position to do so in the foreseeable future.
Good luck Ryn.
 
Hi,

Just to chuck in my tuppence worth about people who report urban legends as having happened to them, its worth remembering that Life does imitate Art. Several decades ago there was a TV advert starring Stirling Moss (he was a racing driver to those of you under 50) which made play on his well-known penchant for speeding. Whilst these adverts were on, one night, whilst driving sedately in Putney (in London) I was cut up by Stirling Moss himself in real life.
 
escargot1 said:
I would be honoured to be haunted by Rynner. Honoured.

I don't know. Showing up unexpectedly in closets or writing "DOOMED!" on the bathroom mirror would be okay, but what if he tosses pots and pans around at all hours and does that old trick with the clanking chains?

Rynner, my prayers are still with you. Get back here soon.
 
plusk said:
Several decades ago there was a TV advert starring Stirling Moss (he was a racing driver to those of you under 50) which made play on his well-known penchant for speeding.

That's odd. Over here (at least) professional racing car drivers enjoy the reputation of being among the safest and most cautious on the highways. They see so much blood and carnage in their chosen profession, while sharing a racetrack with other professionals, that they have no interest in tempting fate while surrounded by hundreds of amateurs.
 
Well, Schumacher got done a couple of years ago for rear-ending someone while he was 'busy' changing channels on his radio. :roll:

And there's the old story about Nigel Mansell being pulled over by police for speeding, and being asked, 'Who do you think you are? Ayrton Senna?' :lol:
 
OldTimeRadio said:
markbellis said:
What really bothers me about stories like this is that nobody considers what kind of emotional impact they have on people who've had loved who've died - they've seen people they've cared about all their lives slip away slowly in pain, and no miracle happened - no puffs of smokes, angelic voices or things like that - they just stopped breathing. What are they supposed to think when they hear stuff like that? Because their father wasn't religious enough, he hasn't gone to heaven?

Look, Mark, my own Dad died in the circumstances you describe - he just stopped breathing after three or four weeks in a terminal coma. No fireworks, no puff of smoke, no laser light show.

But why in the wide world should this turn me against the many hundreds of "positive" reports collected and collated over the decades and indeed the centuries?

You seem to be operating from a premise that only individuals who exude pinwheels of light at the moment of death have any sort of chance at an afterlife. So I'm going to have to ask you to justify that position.

I was writing this because a friend of our family just died over the holidays - I didn't say what you're attributing to me - the STORY implied that the "pastor" was blowing smoke as a sign that his soul was going up to heaven - this is what the people over at snopes.com label 'glurge' - they're the sort of stories eagerly circulated in the hopes it will lead us to Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed or whoever, because of some miracle attributed to them.
I think you can judge for yourself how honest the OP, who promised to never post another story from her "friend", a nurse who curiously routinely breaches professional conduct standards by gossiping about what goes on in her hospital, is.
 
markbellis said:
I didn't say what you're attributing to me

Apologies.

....a nurse who curiously routinely breaches professional conduct standards by gossiping about what goes on in her hospital....

But there's nothing especially sacrosanct about "what goes on in....hospital." It is revealing the NAMES of the PATIENTS involved that is unethical, and there's no evidence at all that the nurse came anywhere even close to doing that.

When the hospice unit physician said to me "You have to understand....we....see....things....here," and the RN nodded in agreement - what confidences did they break?
 
markbellis said:
OldTimeRadio said:
markbellis said:
What really bothers me about stories like this is that nobody considers what kind of emotional impact they have on people who've had loved who've died - they've seen people they've cared about all their lives slip away slowly in pain, and no miracle happened - no puffs of smokes, angelic voices or things like that - they just stopped breathing. What are they supposed to think when they hear stuff like that? Because their father wasn't religious enough, he hasn't gone to heaven?

Look, Mark, my own Dad died in the circumstances you describe - he just stopped breathing after three or four weeks in a terminal coma. No fireworks, no puff of smoke, no laser light show.

But why in the wide world should this turn me against the many hundreds of "positive" reports collected and collated over the decades and indeed the centuries?

You seem to be operating from a premise that only individuals who exude pinwheels of light at the moment of death have any sort of chance at an afterlife. So I'm going to have to ask you to justify that position.

I was writing this because a friend of our family just died over the holidays - I didn't say what you're attributing to me - the STORY implied that the "pastor" was blowing smoke as a sign that his soul was going up to heaven - this is what the people over at snopes.com label 'glurge' - they're the sort of stories eagerly circulated in the hopes it will lead us to Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed or whoever, because of some miracle attributed to them.
I think you can judge for yourself how honest the OP, who promised to never post another story from her "friend", a nurse who curiously routinely breaches professional conduct standards by gossiping about what goes on in her hospital, is.

MarkBellis,
Oy vey, enough already. I'm going to say this one more time -- maybe you've missed it before. So let me say it loud and clear: MY NURSE FRIEND WHO RELATED HER EXPERIENCE WITH THE PASTOR DYING IS NOT A CHRISTIAN.

Neither my friend nor I give a rats a** if you believe in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, or the armchair. Someone started a thread about supernatural happenings in hospitals, so I related said friend's story. Just because you think that it's an urban legend, doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

My friend has shared many of her experiences with me about her work, and none of them have changed or reinforced my religious beliefs. If anything, what she's told me over the last 25+ years makes me scared to death of the hospital, because now I know all the things that can and do go wrong there. (Sorry, Rynner. Here's hoping that you have an advocate with you at the hospital to keep an eye on things. I know I would.)

From what I've gathered, there are very few supernatural events, and a lot natural and even stupid things that happen in hospital ICUs. Just ask any nurse that works in one.

JandZmom
 
markbellis said:
I was writing this because a friend of our family just died over the holidays - I didn't say what you're attributing to me - the STORY implied that the "pastor" was blowing smoke as a sign that his soul was going up to heaven - this is what the people over at snopes.com label 'glurge' - they're the sort of stories eagerly circulated in the hopes it will lead us to Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed or whoever, because of some miracle attributed to them.
I think you can judge for yourself how honest the OP, who promised to never post another story from her "friend", a nurse who curiously routinely breaches professional conduct standards by gossiping about what goes on in her hospital, is.

Mark, you have my condolences.

I think we can all understand your POV and where you were coming from with your initial post. I hope other posters realise this and know that you weren't challenging them as such, rather the tales and anecdotes that are meant to have happened.

I'll be honest when my father died (and even now, a year on), the very last thing I needed to hear or read were such mythical (IMHO) accounts of people on their deathbed or people talking about the 'afterlife'. From my own experience, I believe that people on the brink of death do see things, but I don't believe they are supernatural in origin. But like I say, that's just my opinion on the matter.


First hand accounts of High Strangeness

Indeed, hence on another thread I asked a poster to invite his friend to join the message board rather than relay an incident second-hand.

jandzmom: maybe you could ask your friend to join the board, her input would be appreciated.
 
markbellis said:
I was writing this because a friend of our family just died over the holidays...

I think you can judge for yourself how honest the OP, who promised to never post another story from her "friend", a nurse who curiously routinely breaches professional conduct standards by gossiping about what goes on in her hospital, is.

I'm really sorry to hear about your friend, Mark. I've been on this board in various guises over the last 5 or so years and in that time 2 people close to me have died with not a hint of supernatural activity in their passing. I understand, and I think a lot of people on this board understand, how galling it can be then to hear about these - from your POV - unsubstantiated claims of phenomenal hints at the afterlife when you yourself are left with just a big hole where that person used to be, no flashes of light, no premonitions or strange mists. It can make you angry.

BUT this particular forum is called "It Happened to Me!", NOT "It Happened to Me, the Undersigned, Herewith Enclosed Evidence to Prove my Claims Beyond All Reasonable Doubt". Everything here is anecdotal, and it would take too much TIME to call everyone's validity into question. So for the most part all anecdotal posts are taken in the spirit that they're submitted .
 
Hi OTR,

I agree with you that most racing drivers are safe drivers. Stirling Moss was the exception that proved the rule. They're used to be a catch-phrase in the UK at the height of his fame - if someone next to you in traffic was revving up their motor or showing off you would say "Who does he think he is - Stirling Moss?"
 
"BUT this particular forum is called "It Happened to Me!", NOT "It Happened to Me, the Undersigned, Herewith Enclosed Evidence to Prove my Claims Beyond All Reasonable Doubt". Everything here is anecdotal, and it would take too much TIME to call everyone's validity into question. So for the most part all anecdotal posts are taken in the spirit that they're submitted "

Thanks for your concern - she only took a few days to die, and given that she had advanced cancer, it was sadly the best possible outcome.

Your point is taken, but this isn't an "IHTM" - this is a "It happened to someone else, and they have 'Evidence to Prove my Claims Beyond All Reasonable Doubt', in the form of records signed by at least two members of regulated professions who would face disciplinary action if they lied, but you can't see it. That's like playing poker with somebody who says they have a royal flush, but when they're called, refuses to turn over the cards!

If someone had said they'd seen someone they knew who was dying emit smoke I wouldn't question it, simply because it would be hurtful to them, but this is a different case. This looks like recycled glurge that came as a very unwelcome Christmas present.
 
My mom said she saw a "white mist" leaving my grandmas body immediately after she died in October this year. She said it was so strange, she actually counted her mom's last breaths, and after the final one she saw a mist rise up into the air and vanish. I like to think of it as comforting.
 
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