By Michele McPhee
The Boston Herald
Copyright 2007 Boston Herald Inc.
A 37-year-old man who was seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident in Dorchester waited 31 minutes for an ambulance Feb. 1 during the chaos that gripped the city after a series of bomb scares, it was revealed at a City Council hearing yesterday.
The man had been hit by a car on Hallett Street in Dorchester at 4:17 p.m. — as Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis were preparing for a press conference on the Mooninite prank — but was not transported to the hospital until a private ambulance arrived at the scene of the accident 31 minutes later.
By then, the Boston Fire Department had stabilized him, according to a police report. Emergency Medical Services units had been dispatched around the city as part of the overall response to the scares.
But the incident was one that enraged Boston City Council members, who spent much of yesterday’s council hearing discussing the toll the guerrilla marketing campaign had on the city. The publicity stunt used light-up cartoon panels with hanging wires and a battery pack to promote an upcoming Cartoon Network flick.
“The issue here is that precious city resources were drained,” said City Councilor Michael Flaherty. “We had citizens of this city waiting for an ambulance because EMS was tied up in an emergency response that turned out to be a fraud.”
Flaherty, along with several other city councilors, urged Attorney General Martha Coakley to pursue criminal charges against Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, the two men facing felony charges of planting a hoax device and disorderly conduct.
This week the Herald reported that Berdovsky and Stevens were photographed by transit cops among the spectators at the MBTA’s Sullivan Square Orange Line subway station as emergency responders detonated one of the cartoon devices they had placed.
An attorney for Berdovsky, who was videotaping the cops, said he was there as a “video artist.” The attorney, Jeffrey Pyle, said that the marketing firm that had hired the duo told them to “sit tight.”
“Clearly those photos show there is a premeditation factor here. They are not a couple of dupes,” said City Councilor Stephen Murphy. “They knew exactly what they were doing, and knew exactly what was happening, then did nothing stop the response. It jeopardized the lives of first responders and anyone waiting for emergency service.”
Murphy said that as the chairman of the Public Safety Committee he is going to request copies of the state police 911 calls to make sure that the pranksters did not abuse the emergency call system to report the devices.