The Ambulance Visitor

From: 
Story type: Ghost
Location: Birmingham, England
Source: Form Submission

The Ambulance station where I worked adjoined a hospital for the mentally ill, and was reputed to have been built on the site of a former grave yard where inmates were once buried. As the only Paramedic ambulance crew on night duty, my partner, Dave, and myself had settled ourselves down in our makeshift beds - a prohibited, but nonetheless common practice among ambulance staff. We lay talking in the dark for some time when suddenly, we heard the front door open and then close with a bang, followed by footsteps walking up the passageway outside the crewroom. In a state of panic - believing it to be the mobile duty Officer, who would surely report us for sleeping on duty - we leapt to our feet and switched on the light.

Our panic turned to surprise as no-one entered the room. I then decided to go and see who it was that had come into the building, but was perturbed to find that the door was still locked, just as we had left it. We decided that we must have been hearing things, and so we turned off the light and settled down once again. A few minutes had passed by when, once again, we heard the door open and close just as before, followed by the footsteps. This time we were ready and, leaping to our feet, we went out into the passageway. We were just in time to see the doorway into the garage closing immediately followed by the sound of the ambulance engine starting up.

Our first thought was that someone had come onto the station, and was playing a trick on us but, because we now covered the only doorway leading into the garage, we knew that we had the perpetrator cornered.

While Dave stood in the doorway, I entered the garage and was met by a spectacularly icy chill. I went to the ambulance and discovered that, despite the engine running, there was no key in the ignition, and I had to put it into gear and stall it. By now I was feeling extremely 'spooked' but, knowing that Dave was just a few feet away, I searched the entire garage area...I found no-one! I realized that the chill had subsided and Dave mentioned that, he too, had experienced it.

The rest of the night passed without incident and we were both grateful when the morning shift came on to relieve us. None of our colleagues believed our story, and for a while we were the butt of many a joke. Likewise, I expect that many people who read this will also be cynical. Well...that is, of course, their prerogative, but I was there and know what took place that night!