By EMS1 Staff
GREENVILLE, Tenn. — First responders arrived at what they thought would be a crime scene after dispatchers received a call about a dead body. However, they later found it was only a Halloween decoration.
WJHL reported that Johnny Riddle called 911 and reported a bloody scene he thought he came across on his way to work.
“There’s a guy lying in his driveway, with two big bloody handprints on side of the house,” Riddle said. “It looks like he was dead. I don’t know. I didn’t stop. I just came on to work.”
The “dead body” was in Joseph Lovergine’s driveway and it turned out to be clothing stuffed with paper.
“This morning about 10 o’clock I get a pounding on the door,” Lovergine said. “I said thank you guys for caring but I’m doing just fine.”
Lovergine said responders even pulled the boot off of the decoration, just to be sure.
“I was actually going to dress up under there after everyone’s seated for so long and when they come out to get drinks or something I was going to pop up out of the garage door and scare everybody,” Lovergine said.
Riddle said he is relieved to know the body wasn’t real, and the Greene County Sheriff’s Office humorously alerted the public on its Facebook page to not call 911, but instead congratulate Lovergrine on his great decorating skills.