The phantom ambulance lights

Robert recounts the tale of a "strange happening" that he and his colleague encountered on a call one evening while serving as paramedics in a tiny Texas town in the mid-1990s.

He and his companion got into the ambulance and headed to the address after receiving a call about a girl experiencing chest symptoms.

"We took off Code 3, which means using our emergency lights and sirens," Robert says.

Robert claims that before GPS was invented, they used maps and mailbox numbers to find their way to the remote spot.

"The address we were going to was a very rural one," Robert explains. "So, there was no street lights and it was a very dark night, so it was very difficult to read the mailboxes."

Robert claims he turned off the sirens as they were looking for the right driveway. They thought they'd found it, but when they pulled in, they realized they were mistaken.

"So, we turned off the emergency lights as we backed up to the road and went up the correct driveway," he continues.

When the paramedics got to the scene, they discovered that they had visited the same home for a male patient experiencing cardiac arrest exactly one month earlier.

"In typical medical black-humor fashion, we mentioned to each other that this was probably the wife who was now having a heart attack and was now going to go join her husband."

With their suitcases in tow, they leaped off the ambulance and started tending to the woman, who thankfully turned out to be well. In order to transport her to the hospital for assessment, Robert claims he dispatched his partner to retrieve the stretcher from the ambulance.

Robert said, "He had this strange questioning look on his face when he returned." It was when the two wheeled the patient out to the ambulance that Robert saw the ambulance "had nearly every light it was equipped with turned on."

"Strobe lights, flood lights, some interior lights ... everything on."

Robert questioned his companion about why he had turned on all the lights after bringing the patient to the hospital.

He didn't.

He even reminded Robert that they would all be turned off if they went to the wrong address.

"When we first arrived at the residence, neither of us remembers turning on the floodlights, strobes, or emergency lights. Since we had already arrived, there was really no reason to do so.

"In the end, we wrote it off as her dead husband letting her know that he was still there."

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