In 1971 I was a young Navy Nurse, stationed at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. At that time, the active duty and retired personnel were cared for by Navy Nurses and corpsmen. There was a separate building for their dependents (wives and children) that was staffed by civilian nurses and aides. I'd just received orders that I was being transferred to Adak, Alaska, An island in the Aleutian chain. This was very remote duty, and military personnel could be accompanied by their wives and children. Being such a young nurse, I needed more experience in Pediatrics, so I was moved over to the civilian building. The Pedi unit was T-shaped, with patient rooms along the horizontal, the nurse's station, utility rooms and break room going down the Vertical.
One morning, I had a Drs. Order that a little girl needed to be catheterized. I went to the end of the hall to the break room to request assistance from an aide, and then headed back up the hallway to the clean utility room. I saw a woman I hadn't seen before come out of Nurses Station who seemed to be in a hurry. She was about my height (5'2") stocky build, with short brown curly hair. She was wearing a long green scrub dress, and I assumed her to be a Nurse. She bustled into the clean utility room without even looking in my direction. I was only 3 or 4 steps behind, and also went into the clean utility room. There was no one else there.
This was a small room lined with shelving, and no other way out. Finding this very odd, I went to the Nurses Station to ask "who was that nurse?" The reply was "what nurse?" I described what had just happened, and was told That she had been the Charge Nurse of that unit for many years, and Had died a few years earlier. Whenever she was seen, it had been the Foretelling of a death of anyone that had worked there with her.
The following day one of the housekeepers who'd been there many years, died suddenly of a heart attack.
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