It’s a day of the week ending in y, so it must be time for another strange and slightly horrific Pokemon GO story.
Fox 12 reports that 21 year-old Michael Baker (below) of Forest Grove, Oregon was out playing the AR mobile game in the early hours of the morning when he was stabbed by another man.
Baker – who was out hunting ‘mon at around 1am – innocently assumed that his attacker was a fellow Pokemon GO player, so he approached him. Of course, this guy wasn’t a Pokemon trainer, and proceeded to stab Baker in the shoulder.
Baker said:
I saw him go by and asked if he was playing Pokemon Go. He was like, ‘What?’ I guess he wanted to battle because he came up at me with a knife.
A spokesperson for the Forest Grove Police Department confirmed that there were several witnesses who saw Baker get stabbed, though they have yet to release any information on the suspect.
Police Sgt. Luis Correa warned Pokemon GO players:
This is still very fresh and very new — but what we are encouraging is if you are going to play to do it safely, and not lose sight of what you’re doing. Be aware of your surroundings. Do it in a manner that’s safe so you don’t get into trouble.
After the attack Baker was apparently so keen to carry on playing Pokemon GO that he didn’t go to the hospital to deal with his wound right away.
Oh, and he says he also had to pick up some beer and chips – that’s a man who knows what’s what. Baker eventually got his wound sewn up with eight stitches.
Pokemon GO has become a global phenomenon – but this has led to a number of accidents and sticky situations such as Baker’s.
While there are those that would blame the game itself for these incidents, I think it’s important to remember that as long as you actually use you brain when you’re out playing, you’ll be fine.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.