HUMOUR—Herber Frendt, a Victoria local, received quite a scare after suffering from a heart attack downtown last week. According to witnesses, Frendt walked out of The Binge Eatery on Fort Street before quickly dropping to the ground, yelling in pain. Sarah Piller, who spotted Frendt’s fall, rushed to his aid.
“You can’t just let something like that happen and not act,” stated Piller. “Sometimes you just have to run over and Instagram it.” Unfortunately, due to Piller’s preoccupation with her phone, she was unable to help him. “I am not a doctor anyway,” stated Piller. “The only thing I could do to help was yell, ‘Is anyone here a doctor?’ in hopes that someone would hear and help him, allowing me to videotape the event.”
According to witnesses, Piller’s cries for help were quickly followed by the apparition of a big, blue British police box, right beside Piller and Frendt. “It was like the world had split apart for just a second,” Frendt stated. “I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating, until I realized that Sarah heard the crack and saw the box too.”
A man, approximately five foot nine inches in height, quickly stepped out of the blue police box. According to witnesses, he wore a tweed jacket with elbow patches and a bow tie. The man from the box loudly stated that he was a doctor. Despite the extremely odd entrance, Piller was not worried.
“When he stated that he was a doctor, I was so relieved, as my battery was about to die,” stated Piller. Although the man claimed he was a doctor, he didn’t do much healing, according to Piller. “He just stood around talking about space and time,” stated Piller.
Frendt, although in a lot of pain and slightly delusional, was able to remember the interaction he had with the mysterious doctor. “He [the doctor] started to point what he called a ‘screwdriver’ towards me, stating it would fix me. Sarah then started yelling, ‘He’s not a machine! You can’t fix a person with a screwdriver!’” states Frendt. “It was all very confusing.”
After reports of increasingly loud interactions between Piller and the mysterious doctor, the police arrived to investigate noise disturbance. Upon surveying the scene, the police brought the unnamed man in for questioning and called for an ambulance. Police questioning of the mysterious man was unsuccessful.
Police reports state that the man has escaped police custody, and the police box he came out of is also reportedly missing. “We still have no idea who he was or why the hell he kept on talking about custard and fish sticks,” states police Chief Erik Vold.
Witnesses state that the police box disappeared soon after police took the man into custody. Henry Archer, a Victoria doctor, was also on the scene and witnessed the entire thing. “That’s an experience I’ll never forget. I mean, who was he?” When asked why he didn’t take it upon himself to help Frendt, Archer stated, “Everyone knows about the bystander effect. Why fight it?”
As for Herbert Frendt, he was quickly rushed to the hospital once police arrived to the scene and has since been released to recover at home.
