🚨 First Responder Accounts: The Haunted Ambulance
When you transport the dead, sometimes they linger.
First Responder Accounts – Series Introduction
First responders see things most of us never will, or want to. But sometimes, what they witness goes far beyond the ordinary. This series shares real experiences from uniformed professionals: police officers, paramedics, firefighters, and security guards both civilian and military. These are people who came face to face with something they could not explain.
These are not secondhand stories or local legends. They are first-hand accounts, told by the people who lived them. Trained observers who know the difference between something unusual and something truly impossible. Many of them kept quiet because speaking openly could be seen as a “career-limiting move”. This could lead to alienation, ridicule, psychological evaluations, and being passed over for assignments or promotions.
This series gives them a place to be heard. No judgement. No mockery. Just a chance to tell the truth to people who are willing to listen. The cases include ghost sightings, UFO encounters, cryptids, and strange events that do not fit neatly into any category.
The people are real. The experiences are real. And if even one of them is telling the truth, the world is not what we think it is.
Lisa’s Account
Lisa Andrade had been a paramedic for six years when she responded to the call that changed everything. Known for her level head and practical approach, Lisa was not prone to superstition or dramatics. She had a strong stomach, a calm demeanour, and a no-nonsense attitude that made her a natural in the field. By 2018, she had seen her share of overdoses, gunshot wounds, and fatal accidents. She was respected by her peers and trusted by her supervisors. If she said something strange happened, you listened.
It was a suffocatingly hot summer in central Texas. The kind where the sun baked the asphalt by day and the air stayed thick and unmoving through the night. Lisa was working nights with her regular partner, Ray, out of a small EMS station attached to a private contractor. Their ambulance, Unit 42, was a battered old Type III rig with over 250,000 miles on it. The box creaked with every turn, the air conditioning worked only when it felt like it, and the whole thing smelled like a mix of disinfectant, old upholstery, and burnt coffee. But it was reliable. Familiar. And they had never had a problem with it. Until that night.
The call came in a little after 2:00 a.m. Cardiac arrest. A 58-year-old male had collapsed in his living room. Lisa and Ray were on scene in under six minutes. They found the man unresponsive, his wife frantically trying to perform chest compressions with shaking hands. Lisa took over immediately. She and Ray worked the code like clockwork. Compressions, airway, multiple doses of epinephrine, two shocks. Nothing worked. After twenty minutes, Lisa called the time of death. The wife broke down. Ray called it in. Lisa sat with the woman for a few minutes before they quietly prepared the body for transport to the county morgue.
They lifted the man onto the stretcher, strapped him in carefully, and loaded him into the back. Ray drove. Lisa rode in the back with the body, filling out her report in the dim light. The roads were quiet, and the only sound was the soft hum of the tires on the asphalt.
Halfway through the drive, Lisa froze. From behind her, just a few feet away, she heard a single, raspy cough. It was quick, but unmistakable.
"I did not imagine it," she would later tell a supervisor. "It came from the stretcher."
When they arrived at the morgue, Ray opened the rear doors and immediately noticed something was off. The body straps were unfastened. Lisa had secured them herself. Tightly. Checked them twice.
After that night, strange things began happening in Unit 42. Subtle at first. The rear doors would occasionally open on their own while parked. The interior lights flickered even when the rig was shut off. One night, another paramedic found the monitor cycling through vital signs despite being unplugged. Crew members started requesting other units.
A young EMT swore she saw a shadow move across the frosted glass cabinet in the back, but no one else was there. Another crew member felt a sudden cold spot wrap around her like a breath on the back of her neck. One senior paramedic reported that, while on standby outside a hospital, she felt a firm pressure on her shoulder as if someone had rested their hand there, but when she turned, she was alone.
The unit was sent to maintenance. Wiring was replaced. Battery systems were checked. The doors were re-latched and tested. No mechanical faults were found. And yet, the stories kept piling up. They were not daily. They did not follow a pattern. But they happened. And word spread.
Eventually, the station chaplain was quietly called in, to not draw attention. He spent almost half an hour in the back of the rig, praying, walking the perimeter, and placing a light trail of salt across the threshold. He did not say much afterward. Just nodded and left.
After that, the incidents stopped. Or at least, people stopped talking about them.
Lisa never stepped into Unit 42 again. She stayed on shift but quietly arranged to be assigned to another rig. When asked if she believes in ghosts, she usually shrugs.
"I believe something happened," she says. "I just do not know what."
Unit 42 eventually rotated out of service. Some said it was sold to a rural station a few counties away. Others think it was scrapped. But those who worked that summer still talk about it in quiet tones. Because once you have ridden in a haunted rig, you never really forget.
And if you ever find yourself in an ambulance late at night, headed down an empty highway, and you hear something move behind you when it should not, just remember Lisa’s words:
"Check the straps. Twice."
Are You a Police Officer, Paramedic, Firefighter, or Security Guard?
Have you experienced something you still can’t explain while on duty? This series shares true accounts from first responders who encountered the unexplainable: ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, and strange events that defy classification.
If you're a police officer, paramedic, firefighter, or security guard — whether civilian or military — and you've witnessed something that stayed with you, we want to hear your story.
This is a space where your experience will be taken seriously. You can remain anonymous if needed. What happened to you matters, and others may have experienced something similar.
Not a first responder, but still have a true paranormal story to share? We welcome those too. If you've encountered something you can't explain, you're invited to send it in.
Would love to hear more personal accounts from our First Responders, military veterans, medical staff. Some may not even be aware they were a part of something paranormal.