In Kyoto, a tragic and fatal incident unfolded involving an unlicensed driver who ran their car into a crowd of people consisting of elementary school children and a pregnant woman.  It’s one of those horrible accidents that bring out the deepest hurt, shock and anger in all of us.

So it’s no surprise to hear people lash out at whomever or whatever is responsible but an especially scathing commentary has sprung from a surprising source.  Tajima Emergency & Critical Care Medical Center (TECCMC) who had sent an air ambulance to the accident scene, released an uncharacteristically harsh attack not on the driver of the vehicle but on the mass media outlets for their intrusive reporting on the premises in an article titled; Do people in the media have hearts?

The blog tells about how reporters had ignored the medical center’s refusals and without any regard would take footage of families as they left the morgue, at one point equating their behavior to barging into one’s house and traipsing around with their shoes on.

In what appears to be a shamelessly awful case of reporting, the TECCMC staff continued to express their frustration writing “Not thinking of any of the families, medical staff, or anyone else connected to this incident, are people in the media’s hearts rotten?”

These are extremely harsh comments coming from a professional medical center located in Kyoto where people, even by Japanese standards, tend to be reluctant to speak ill of others openly.  So the level of anger in this staff is clear as they close by writing “We know that many people read this blog, so we are choosing to say all this publicly.”

The outcome of their message is still uncertain as is what will become of the footage allegedly taken on the TECCMC property. However, the public’s reaction to this blog posting has been large and often equally angry.

Source: TECCMC blog  (Japanese)