40. The Lady In Pink

When I worked in a nursing home there was an elevator between the levels as well as stairs at the far end. It was shaped like a u with the nurses station on one tip of the u and the residents spread out around the unit so hypothetically you could see all the exits and stop any confused residents. I was studying to be an RN at the time so I always did night shift. Here’s the thing though. The elevator would randomly one a night go from the top floor to the bottom, and then about an hour later come back up to the floor you were on.

I didn’t think anything of it thinking it was a quirk of the system or something. That was until the night I saw her, the “lady in pink”.

I was in the nurse’s station studying and looked up to see what looked like a resident who had sundowners in pink walking without her walker to the elevator from her room on the other end of the unit. So me being a good nurse I ran to stop her falling or falling down the stairs. But here’s the thing. I get there and she’s not there. So I check her room and the sides of her bed are up and she is unconscious.

Then as I’m walking back I notice the call button is lit up. The elevator opens, the door closes and the elevator moves with no one in it.

I tell my coworkers the next morning (just me on nightshift) and they tell me it’s the lady in pink. Tell me they had this huge Samoan guy who worked there 2 weeks doing nights until he saw the lady in pink then he quit. So me being the big, strong, masculine figure I was, I did the only logical thing. I quit and got a job as security in a high security psych facility. I prefer my danger visible thank you very much.