Ghost Stories From Japan Episode 61 : Three boats setting sail

My sister is a nurse.
She has changed hospitals several times, and says there are spiritual rumors in most of them.
One of the most common is that patients are picked up before they die.
My sister did not have a particularly psychic constitution, but she had a strange experience.
This is a true story my sister told me at a certain general hospital in Fukuoka Prefecture.
One day, my sister's senior was to help an operation.
The surgery was successfully completed and patient's condition was stable, but that evening, the senior said to my sister.
"Mister Y, I don't think he can make it..."
The surgery was a success and his condition was stable, but...why ?
My sister listened to the senior's story without thinking deeply.
However, later that day, Mr. Y passed away.
My sister was curious about what the senior said, but she did not listen to it.
A few days later, patient O, a healthy male patient in his late 20s, was admitted to the hospital with an internal organ disease.
His illness was relatively mild, he was in good health, and he and his sister were close in age, so they talked a lot.
He and his sister often talked and said things like this, "Let's go somewhere together after I get out of the hospital !"
Then, the night my sister was assigned to the night shift.
When she went to check on Mr. O's room at night, she saw something like a black shadow entering his room.
She peeked into the hospital room to see what it was, but the scene was the same as usual, Mr. O was sleeping peacefully, and there was nothing weird.
However, the next morning, Mr. O's condition suddenly changed, and he had to undergo emergency surgery.
The operation was successfully completed, and Mr. O was able to return to the general ward without any troubles, and everyone was talking about how happy it was.
But, the senior was the only one who didn't want to talk about it much.
My sister was close to Mr. O and was also concerned about what she said the other day, so she asked her, "What's wrong ?"
And she told her the following story.
She said, "Actually...when Mr. O was in surgery, I saw four black figures at his head... I don't think he has long to live..."
My sister was scared to hear this story, because she herself had witnessed the black figures on the night shift the day before.
The senior continued.
"When the number of shadows at the head place reaches five, a patient will die."
When Mr. Y was during his operation, she also saw five figures at his bedside.
In the end, the bad premonition came true, and although Mr. O was young and recovered quickly, his condition suddenly changed, and he passed away.
There had long been a rumor in the hospital where my sister worked.
It was, "three boats go out", meaning that three people often die in a row.
So the nurses who have worked at the hospital for a long time always guess that, when one person dies, at least two more will probably follow....
And they say that the patients who die have one thing in common, five shadowy figures gather at their bedside and take them with them.
A few days after Mr. O's death, this time an elderly patient, Mr. M, committed suicide by hanging himself on the stairs.
They said he was found in the morning after a night shift.
Perhaps five shadows had come to Mr. M's bedside as well.
According to my sister's senior, those five shadows are often people who are related to the patient.
I often hear them say that, when people die, they dreamed of a river like the Sanzu River, and old acquaintances were waving to them, but maybe their own acquaintances are coming to pick them up.
Are the five black shadows in that hospital perhaps the grim reapers with the faces of acquaintances ... ?