Fire Lt. Kevin Linhart stands in a hallway Friday near where a ghost reportedly was seen at Frankfort Fire Protection District Station 3 in Green Garden Township.
In the vast open spaces of rural Green Garden Township, the wind whips wickedly and the nights are eerily dark. The only structures on this empty stretch of LaGrange Road are the Frankfort Fire Protection District’s station and training facility and Fawn Landscaping across the road.
So what would bring a television crew out here in the middle of the night? Ghostly apparitions, shadowy figures and things that sing or go bump — in the night. Many believe the fire station – a former lawn implement shop – is haunted.
Firefighters aren’t the sort to be easily alarmed, but they admit there have been many unexplainable effects, events, even comings and goings. Some are more amused than alarmed, but most now are believers that there is “something going on” out there at Station 3.
The station will be featured on A&E’s new “Paranormal Cops” show, to air at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Lt. Todd Hamm worked at this station a long time.
“I used to see things going in and out of the ambulance – shadowy things,” he said.
One night, a couple of years ago, there was a dark-clothed, blackish figure that walked right in front of him while he was watching TV alone at night after everyone else had gone to bed.
“I was taken aback. I was going to yell, but I didn’t want to wake anyone up,” Hamm said.
There were other “things,” too, that he tried to put out of his mind, such as footsteps upstairs in the attic.
“Yeah, there’s some stuff out there. We just try to co-exist with whatever is going on,” he said.
Sightings by firefighters over the past year or so include a tall blue shadow in the hallway, an angry cowboy and several silhouettes and shadowy figures going by doors or windows and standing over their beds at night.
According to Assistant Fire Chief Bob Wilson, the Will County Ghost Hunters Society was called in several months ago. Its investigation claimed that the ambulance was haunted and that there is an angry cowboy out there, among other spirits. When A&E called, Wilson initially thought it was a “joke.”
Firefighter George Schwass never believed the stories until he saw the blue, shadowy apparition in the hallway one night. He thought it was his lieutenant, the only other person on duty that night, but he later learned the lieutenant was not walking the halls at 3 a.m.
“It’s a pole barn. With a little bit of wind, it creaks,” firefighter Joe Odette said, as if he could dismiss these paranormal events. “It’s on everyone’s mind. I never used to believe this stuff.”
But he’s heard so many tales. And then one night he was leaving on an ambulance call, and as his colleague turned back to close the huge overhead door, it suddenly closed – by itself.
“I think there’s something here – I just don’t see it,” he said.
Firefighter Tom Warszalek said he welcomes and believes in spiritual activity but, sadly, never has witnessed it.
“I would love to see it,” he said. “I like ghosts. I don’t want them to be mad at us. I don’t want to be freaked out.”
He also believes some things are more plausible than “floating ghosts.”
Like the doors that Mike Illarde heard opening and closing when no one was there or the radio that mysteriously went off and sent a signal to the dispatch center.
“I don’t know if this place is haunted. It could be. Anything is possible,” Warszalek said.
Firefighters have been told these are not evil spirits, said Wilson, who always has heard the guys talking but never has seen an occurrence for himself.
“They’re freaking me out. I’m not saying I believe it or not. One way or another, let’s prove it, right or wrong. You never know,” he said.
Will A&E’s show provide such proof? The show’s investigators and film crew did not share much of what – if anything – they discovered at the fire station. Hopefully there will be no emergency calls Tuesday night so firefighters can tune in.
Will it put Frankfort on ghost hunters’ maps or make the firefighters appear foolish?
Most of them seem to be having fun with all this ghostly attention. Lt. Kevin Linhart is excited about the show, even though he’s a bit skeptical.
“I told the (TV people) they were wasting their time,” he said. There could be spirits, he reasoned – after all, unfortunately, people have died in these ambulances and there have been fatal car accidents in the area. And who knows about the life and death of the previous owner?
“I’ve heard they are friendly spirits. I just wish they would do some work around here,” Linhart said.
This was taken from The Herald-News and is copyright by the articles owner
