46. The Hand-Washing Spirit

My mother trained as a nurse at the old Westminster Teaching Hospital in London in the 1950s. On one of her first night shifts she was doing rounds in the children’s ward. Everything was fine, all the kids were asleep, but in one of the rooms she found the sink faucet running, which was a bit weird, because it had been fine when she’d been by a few minutes before. She figured that one of the kids had got up and been thirsty or something, turned it off, and carried on with the rounds.

When her shift was over she checked out with the Matron, who asked if she had anything to report. She said there was nothing, except that someone had left a faucet on in one of the rooms. The Matron looked horrified and gasped out “oh no!” She then explained that the ward was haunted by a ghost which washed its hands – leaving the faucet running – whenever a child was going to die.

My mother laughed this off, pointed out that none of the kids in the ward were seriously ill and went home.

When she came in for her shift the next evening she discovered that a previously perfectly fine child in that room had had a sudden seizure and died only a few hours after she’d found the open faucet.