A Japanese woman who made 2,761 fake emergency calls over nearly 3 years because she was feeling lonely has finally been arrested.
According to local reports, the accused, named Hiroko Hatagami, resides in Matsudo, east of Tokyo, and has repeatedly made emergency calls from her mobile phone and other means over the past two years and nine months, from her home and other locations in her neighborhood, reports Al-Rai daily.
Between August 2020 and May 2023, the woman made repeated calls asking the Matsudo Fire Department to send ambulances, and she was mostly saying that she was complaining of stomach pain, overdose on medication, or that she had severe pain in the legs and more.
And when ambulances arrived at her home, she refused to take her to the hospital, saying, “I don’t want to take an ambulance, and it wasn’t me who called you.”
Despite receiving warnings from the fire department and police, she continued to make emergency calls, which led to her arrest last Thursday.
It is estimated that nearly 1.5 million people suffer from loneliness in Japan, as the situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced people to stay indoors.