Your
True Tales
October 2005 – Page
13
Miracle
in D Wing
by Karen
In 1991, I was working third shift as a CNA (nursing assistant) in a local nursing home. This was my first job as a CNA, and I was unfamiliar with the strange goings-on of the elderly, but I was quite interested in listening to the other CNA's spin tales of "death premonitions" such as knocking closets, a black cat at the door three nights in a row, and/or the "rfule of 3s" whereby it was rumored that the occurrence of one death at the nursing home was always followed by two more in a very short period of time. I shrugged the stories off as as a fun way to pass time at night after all the patients had gone to sleep and the nursing home fell eerily silent and shadowy.
I was too focused on performing well at my new job to let the place spook me at all. That is, until the night we had a very bad electrical storm. This particular night, I was the only CNA on duty on our hall, as the other girl had called in sick and there was no one to cover for her. So the charge nurse and I figured we could handle it as things were usually very quiet after midnight.
When she and I both saw lightning begin to flash through the courtyard windows down the hallway, Cindy groaned about the way the patients always began to behave strangely during a storm. She told me a few "war stories" then got up and asked me to watch the desk area while she went and checked on the patients. Off she went down the C wing.
Now, the charge desk sat in the corner of two hallways, and you could see down both C wing and D wing equally well. I pulled out a notebook and began to document on one of the patient charts. In a few minutes, something caught my eye down D wing. I looked up, but saw nothing. I stared down the hall for a good two minutes, but didn't see anything further. I knew Cindy was down on C wing and could not have passed back by the desk without my knowledge.
I went back to writing, but then saw something again. I looked up, and there was Margaret, a long-time resident, halfway down D wing, heading toward the desk. Not necessarily remarkable, unless you consider that Margaret had not walked nor talked for over eight years! I shouted for Cindy, and she came running, rounded the corner and nearly ran right into Margaret! We helped the patient back to bed, and Cindy went to document this. I tidied up the room, and walked to the doorway, and flicked the light out and instinctively said, "Goodnight, Margaret." She said, "Goodnight."
When I told Cindy she told me goodnight (because I had not heard the woman speak since I had worked there), Cindy's eyes flew wide and her mouth dropped open. She told me that Margaret had had a midline stroke eight years ago, and it was impossible for her to speak or walk, and she had not done those things in all those years! She never did it afterwards either. But she completely freaked me and Cindy both out that night, and not one soul believed us!
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