They say there is no greater joy than to give to those in need, especially when it’s the gift of life through a simple blood donation. It’s also been said that there’s a certain satisfaction to be had when smashing your forehead into the face of a rival. If these two maxims are true then one man in Yamagata Prefecture must have been over the moon recently.
Temperatures rose and blood began to boil as violence broke out at a bloodmobile on March 5 after a would-be donor assaulted one of the blood drive’s staff. The 52-year-old unemployed suspect Hisashi Sudo allegedly grabbed the also 52-year-old Japan Red Cross worker by his collar and head butted him in the face.
According to police the incident occurred at about 12:50 in the afternoon in Sagae City on a sidewalk where the blood drive was set up. Sudo allegedly stormed up to the front of the line of people waiting to donate and uttered remarks such as “I’ve been waiting forever!”
He then allegedly proceeded to ram his head into a bloodmobile staff member’s face and there are also accusations that he may have kneed the man in his stomach as well during the assault. Someone at a nearby driving school saw the ruckus and called the police who swiftly came and apprehended Sudo. As you could have probably expected, they declared him intoxicated at the time too.
Many online reacted to the news with a certain level of disbelief.
“Drunk people can donate blood?!”
“I wonder what his blood type was.”
“Did he donate blood from his head?”
“He cares a lot about time for an unemployed drunk guy.”
“I don’t know much about what happened, but if it takes too long just go home and don’t donate.”
“There’s a lot of hot-blooded people out there.”
However, a slim majority of comments surprisingly came out firmly in support of the alleged blood bank brawler.
“They didn’t report how long he was waiting. Sure if it was only 15 minutes he shouldn’t have done that, but what if he was waiting three hours in the freakin’ cold.”
“I know the feeling. I once had to wait nearly three hours. Since I missed lunch I passed out while donating.”
“This old guy is right.”
“Those who donate their blood should be treated with the proper respect.”
“It’s endearing that he wanted to donate blood so strongly.”
“Usually people don’t go around headbutting each other. There’s no way these two guys didn’t have some bigger beef going on with each other.”
The last comment may have been onto something given the two men’s similar ages. There may very well have been some bad blood between the two before this incident occurred.
Others mentioned that due to the suspect’s age, he many have confused the blood donation for a place where he could sell his blood. That seems unlikely though as the last of the blood dealers in Japan closed up shop in the late sixties when Sudo would have been still a young child.
What exactly was going through Sudo’s alleged mind at the may never be known to the general public, but I think this just further confirms that nothing good comes from getting wasted and heading down to a blood drive.
Source: Yamagata News Online via Itai News (Japanese)
Top Image: RocketNews24