This is a true story about an ongoing haunting that is occurring in Richmond, Virginia at a local ambulance company located just off Broad Street near the Willow Lawn Shopping Center. My 25 year old son-in-law has been working at this company as an Emergency Medical Technician for approximately a year now and he comes home weekly with new haunting stories. The small brick building was once a warehouse of some type and during a fire many years ago, several people were trapped inside and died. They were Hispanic migrant workers who apparently slept in the warehouse. It is now used as an ambulance company and during the 24 hour shifts, EMT people are required to spend the night in the building. There is also a dispatcher who is always on duty, even during the night hours.
When my son-in-law first went to work there, he wondered why the sleeping cots were set up in the smaller room rather than the larger bunk room. He was told that the larger room was haunted and if people tried to sleep there, they’d feel cold hands on them in the night. He didn’t know whether to believe this or not, but he did notice that whenever he worked a 24 hour shift and slept there, he had very bad nightmares and he’d wake up to a cold tingling feeling running up and down his spine.
One evening, he and a co-worker were watching television, and they both heard foot steps walk across the concrete floor right in front of them. They’ve also heard foot steps walking through the bay area around the ambulance and doors will slam closed by themselves. One of the ghosts becomes very agitated if the roll-up bay door is closed. The door has a chain mechanism that the ghost will rattle incessantly if the door is closed, which it has to be in the winter since it’s cold. It gets so bad that workers will frequently go into the bay area and yell at the ghost telling it they know it’s there and to quit banging the chain on the door. The banging will stop. The occurrences in this building have become so commonplace, all of the ambulance employees have started talking to the ghosts in an attempt to get them to quiet down and leave the employees alone.
One of the stories my son-in-law came home with involved a new-hire who is a born again Christian and recently went to work for the company. The new employee felt very strongly that the ambulance company workers, including my son-in-law, were totally wrong about the supposed haunting and that there is no such thing as ghosts. He said when a person dies, they either go to heaven or hell and that’s it. No hanging around. He was very vocal about his opinions and felt it was blasphemous for them to talk the way they were about the building being haunted. Apparently, openly challenging the existence of a ghost can sometimes be a bad idea. That very evening when he went to bed during his first 24 hour shift, just after he laid down he felt two cold hands press down on his chest and was so completely startled and frightened that he was unable to move. This employee was a large, powerful and imposing man but nevertheless, he was completely freaked out and refused to sleep in the room or work a 24 hour shift again. Now he totally believes in ghosts.
They think there are at least two ghosts in the building. The aggressive one who bangs the chain on the bay door, walks around the bay area, slams doors and puts his cold hands on people and then there is the ghost of a woman who has been seen in the office area. She was sighted recently when two ambulance workers walked by the office window and saw a short, dark haired woman in the office who looked like she was going to open the filing cabinet. Not recognizing her after they walked past, they went back to find out who she was and why she was in the office. There was no one there. They said she looked real and saw enough of her to see her height, her hair color and that she was standing in front of the filing cabinet, looking at it, and poised to open it. The office window is inside the building and looks out over the bay area where the ambulance is parked. There is no door to the outside from the office.
It’s so interesting to hear about new things that happen there. My daughter and I intend to go over one evening and see if we can get anything on some digital photos and although I’d feel lucky to just hear the footsteps, in all honesty, I can do without the cold hands!
Lisa.Lohr@SunTrust.com
Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:23 pm
