
The sound of an ambulance siren could never be considered something pleasant, but it’s not really something the average person hates. It’s annoying, but then again it’s meant to be annoying–and it’s usually part of rescuing someone in need. We may not like it, but we certainly do appreciate it.
So, while most people may cringe and cover their ears when an ambulance goes screeching by, we doubt anyone would actually get mad and try to assault one!
Unless you happen to be this university lecturer…
Last week, 54-year-old Tetsuji Hirayama, a lecturer from Tsukuba University in Ibaraki Prefecturer, was arrested for interfering with public servants in the execution of their duties. Which is a somewhat vague offence that could cover a lot of ground–but in Hirayama’s case it was specifically for assaulting (for lack of a better word) ambulances.
▼Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture
Over the last six years, since 2008, Hirayama has allegedly interfered with ambulances in Tsukuba City at least 12 times! Nevertheless, it wasn’t until last week that he was finally arrested.
Apparently, Hirayama has yelled at both the paramedics in the ambulances and the vehicles themselves. The lecturer even jumped in front of one ambulance as it was driving down the street. He has also allegedly screamed “Baaaka! Baaaka!” (or “Stuuupid! Stuuupid!”) at the vehicles on university premises and in front of a hospital. The total number of incidences recorded are as follows: twice in both 2008 and 2009, once in 2013, and a total of seven times in 2014 alone.
The lecturer was finally arrested after being caught kicking a parked ambulance.
▼Note the lack of a “Kick me sign.”
As for why Hirayama apparently goes Jack Nicholson in The Shining whenever an ambulance goes by, it turns out that…well, he just really hates the sirens. We can’t help suspecting that there’s a deeper issue–maybe he thinks sirens are actually the screams of trapped spirits?–but what he told police was: “The sirens are loud so I didn’t like ambulances. I just happened to see one stopped, so I kicked it.”
Naturally, Japanese commenters were not impressed with Hirayama.
“How does someone with this little sense get to be a lecturer in a university??”
“Let’s just deport him.”
“All his efforts over the last six years have finally borne fruit!”
“As expected, people who shout ‘stupid’ are the stupid ones.”
“Is he a dog??”
While we can kind of understand how Hirayama might have felt–noisy sirens are, well, noisy–we absolutely cannot understand interfering with an ambulance. It’s almost as bad as people who don’t pull over when driving to let the emergency vehicles pass.
Hopefully someone can help Hirayama deal with this and get him to chill out around ambulances. Maybe he just needs some noise cancelling headphones from Chanel? That could make for a pretty good commercial, now that we’re thinking about it!
Sources: Itai News 2channel, Yomiuri
Top image: Wikipedia (Akiyoshi Matsuoka)



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