By FireRescue1 Staff
In the spirit of Halloween, we thought it would be interesting to set aside the ghost stories and hear more about the peculiar calls firefighters are sometimes dispatched to.
We asked our Facebook fans to describe the strangest, creepiest or most unexplained thing they’ve seen in their firefighting careers; here are some of their responses.
Did we miss your chilling story? Tell us in the comment section below.
- “Old timers talk of a Halloween car accident with fatalities. As they were pulling up, a man dressed as the Grim Reaper was pointing toward the accident. Reporting party was on their way to a costume party.” – Josh Dunn
- “Decades ago, when they only had three women on the fire department, while on a ride along with Detroit Fire at a 0300 fire, the interior crew requested me to assist them on the second floor of two-story SFD. Why? Bat. Chief said just run up there. The stairs were dark. As I reached the top of the stairs, the guys illuminated the top of the wainscot with one flashlight. One at a time, I could see just heads mounted on the shelf. I was shocked. I gasped. This was the time right after John Wayne Gacy had been caught. They all broke out laughing. Then with a gasp of relief of realizing they were manikin heads, so did I!” – Sherry Wings
- “Sixteen years ago, 11 p.m., I’m at the station alone working on a project. My buddy that took me under his wing when I first came on had died just a few weeks before. Big prankster, funny guy. He loved picking at me. I am walking through the meeting room and the siren hits one blast. No one at the manual button, com would be the only other way it gets activated. No call dispatched. I jump two feet in the air and when I land I just know I heard my buddy laugh.” – Robert-Lisa Carlton
- “In 2006, I was just an 18-year-old probie and we had a car fire in a cemetery around 3 a.m. on a full moon night. DB inside the car. Victim was parked next to his daughter’s grave. She was killed by her mother’s boyfriend a couple years prior on the very same day. " – Mike Novak
- “The strangest thing I’ve ever experienced in my career was before the Beech Creek, Pa. Memorial Day parade this year. We were standing around talking about one of our trucks before the parade started when I saw a lady walking a goat on a leash. The goat wouldn’t cooperate and kept lying on the ground. She was dragging the goat that kept lying down until she put it the back of a pickup truck and drove off. Not creepy but it surely is strange.” – Erik Fotorny
- “While running the EMS box, just being a rookie, we made three calls at 7 a.m. to the same mile marker. Same one. Vehicle rollovers with fatalities in the same spot, three days in a row.” – Oscar Cantu