Man 'attacked' with hammer in Google Street View prank 'burst out laughing'

A student's hilarious field trip prank has gone viral after it was immortalised on Google Street View.

Earth sciences student Gideon Furterman, 21, said he "couldn't stop laughing" after he spotted that he and his friend's enactment of a hammer attack had made it onto the online navigation service.

Furterman told Yahoo News that the pair had spotted the Google Street View car approaching during a geological trip to the Isle of Lewis in Scotland in the summer.

When the pair realised it was mapping the area, they leapt into action — with the earth sciences student playing the victim of the attack, with the help of their trusty rock hammer.

The snapshot has been liked nearly 25,000 times online.

"I was up in Lewis for 18 days, and in the last week, we were walking from our accommodation in Habost to Swainbost beach to look at the rocks," Furterman told Yahoo News.

"We originally passed the Google Street View car and waved. The car had a 360-degree camera on a pole above it, and is clearly marked, so we could see that it was coming."

The first time it passed the pair were not prepared, but by the second time, they had started to plan out the scene.

"Since we had a geological hammer on us — we use it to hammer to rocks to give us a fresh surface to look at — we thought it would be funny to enact a scene," the student said.

"My friend pretended to attack me with the hammer as the car went past. We actually did it as the car just passed us, and weren't sure they'd actually keep it in, given they already had images from when they earlier went down the road.

"The driver seemed to find it funny as well - you can see us giving him a thumbs-up in the next picture."

When the 21-year-old spotted the actual image on Google Street View, he said he "burst out laughing for at least a minute straight".

"I immediately sent it to my friend and then my family. My brother told me that my life had peaked and I'd never be able to top this."

Furterman said he had been "slightly shocked" by how popular the image has been online.

"I almost exclusively use my twitter to talk about solar radiation modification, slowing the development of dangerous AI systems, or animal welfare, so I'm definitely not use to this amount of attention on a tweet," he said.

"My favourite part of the reaction has been the assumption that it was my friend who I was supposedly attacking with the hammer - it wasn't, I was the one being 'attacked' Nonetheless, not a single commenter has assumed this, which I find quite amusing," he added.

"I'm just happy that so many people have found such amusement from this - its always nice to have something to laugh about!" he added.