A paramedic has told how he feared for his life after the ambulance he was driving was targeted by criminals while he and his partner responded to a call.

The man, who asked to remain anonymous, told News24 that they were called out to attend to a patient in Nyanga.

“We had to phone the switchboard for the right house, because we got lost,” he said.

On arrival, they agreed, for safety reasons, that only one of them would go inside the house to assess the patient. The other would stay inside the locked ambulance outside the house.

“I could see that the patient was in distress and I had to go fetch the stretcher to make it easier for us to load the patient,” the paramedic said.

But on his way out, the ambulance was surrounded by four men who demanded money and cellphones.

Out of fear and shock, he ran back into the house and locked himself in the house with the patient, while his colleague was still locked inside the ambulance.

“All I could think about was the safety of my colleague inside the ambulance,” he said.

The thieves managed to open the back of the ambulance and took off with a backpack with medical supplies.

No one was harmed during the robbery.

He said they left the patient in the house and opened a case at the Nyanga police station.