Looks like those po-mo quackademics might just be right after all, and language does create reality. See, a word (a town's title) seems to have precipitated an assault upon an ambulance driver.
Could this be a case of "When in Berserker, do as the berserkers, er, used to do"?
If so, this is a change from other Oz behavioural phenomena whose spirit was the polar opposite of that suggested by the locations in which they occurred.