The hideous waking nightmare of Hoboken, New Jersey's day-long St. Patrick's Day Bar Crawl was briefly interrupted on Saturday night when a homeless man set himself on fire in the middle of a street, NJ.com reports.

Police received a call around 11 p.m. that a man was trying to set himself aflame, Hoboken police Chief Kenneth Ferrante told NJ.com. By the time responding officers Lt. Mike DeTrizio and Sgt. Steven Aguiar arrived on the scene, he had succeeded and was on fire in the middle of the road.

Ferrante said that the officers shouted at the man to get on the ground. He remained standing, and began screaming. The officers pushed him to the ground and rolled him over, extinguishing the fire. NJ.com reports that the man was not seriously injured.

The incident occurred part-way through Hoboken's fourth annual St. Patrick's Day Bar Crawl. On Saturday night, Ferrante said police had made nine arrests for assault and drug possession, and that there had been a total of 44 violations of city ordinances barring public drinking and urination. He told NJ.com that he expected that number to double by 4 a.m.

St. Patrick's Day, incidentally, is on March 17th, which is not until next week.

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