My story took place in Puerto Rico in 2003. I was just done with Nursing School and had just started my first nursing job in a Orthopedic Unit in a very upscale private hospital. I was with my preceptor (I was almost done with my orientation) and she told me to take her pt assignment and go and check each one alone. (For those of you who do not know the term "pt assignment" refers to the pts you have to take care of during a particular shift) I was really excited to this on my own and I started to check them by room number (eg. 154 then 155 and so on).
When I get to room 160 the door was opened and the lights were on (all of them), I looked to see inside the room and I saw a man laying in the bed cover with a blanket then I looked at the pt assignment and that room appeared to be empty. At this point I looked at the room number to checked if I was standing at the wrong room but no it was clearly room 160, having checked this I looked inside (again) and saw the same guy in the exact same way and I even looked to the window and I saw his reflection. At that moment my thought was: "The nurse forgot to tell us about this guy".
After this I finished the round (checking the pts) and went to my preceptor and told her: "We have a pt in room 160 and is not on our assignment". After I said that the nurse's eyes went wide open she then checked the census and asked me: "Are you sure" she went and grabbed the other RN and told her: "Sara saw a pt in room 160 and I am sure we have nobody there" The other nurse looked as surprised as she did, but after a few minutes they decided to go and check it out, before that, they asked me how was that guy (in appearance) and I told her what I saw: an older guy, white, in his 50's, bald with some white hair cover with a blanked in bed and seems to be asleep. They went really quick and looked then when they got back they asked again: "are you sure it was in room 160? And I said yes!
By now I was pretty upset about all the asking about the room number then my preceptor told me that 1 week before a pt committed suicide in that room, and that the pt was a white male in his 50's, bald with white hair. I was in shocked and thought they we joking but not she then called security and asked them to check the room out, they came, saw nothing and closed the room, we did not go near that room for the rest of the shift.
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