Grateful granny wants cabbie to come forward

Winnipeg's taxi drivers have had a rough ride of late, but that's hardly breaking news to anyone who's been paying attention.

Knifepoint robberies. Beatings.

It's beginning to look like someone has declared open season on cabbies.

On Tuesday, for instance, a taxi driver was stabbed by a female passenger over a $5 fare.

Last week, a man and a woman tag-teamed a cabbie, grabbing his cash, briefly stealing his taxi and beating him so badly he ended up in hospital.

The collective face of cabbies took another kind of beating last spring when the Manitoba Taxicab Board revealed that over the past three years, it has received 13 complaints that have alleged sexual misconduct by drivers, ranging from inappropriate use of language to inappropriate touching.

Those numbers only came to light after a 41-year-old cabbie was charged with the alleged sexual assault and forcible confinement of a 21-year-old female passenger in May.

The young woman told police she was picked up around 5 a.m., which coincidentally seems like the most dangerous time of day for cabbies, given when most of the attacks on them seem to happen.

Which brings me to a story about a taxi driver and a young female passenger with a decidedly different twist.

It was reported last week in an email by the 18-year-old woman's grandmother.

The grandmother didn't identify her granddaughter by name, but she did identify herself and her husband.

She said she prefers to be known as Mrs. Jim Eveleigh.

And this is what she wrote:

-- -- --

"Taxi drivers are always being complained about. The following one went beyond the call of duty and as a result our granddaughter is still ALIVE.

"On June 23 in the early hours at approximately 5 a.m., our granddaughter was not feeling well, so called a taxi in the St. James area to go home.

"Apparently she called Unicity Taxi.

"While in the taxi, she vomited a few times and the taxi driver insisted on taking her to the Grace Hospital.

"If it was not for his efforts, we would not have her today as on June 24 she went into emergency brain surgery at Health Sciences Centre. This was after we almost lost her a few times as her condition had to be stabilized before she went into surgery.

"Had she gone home to rest, she would have died in her sleep.

"His efforts in getting her to hospital are greatly appreciated by the family."

-- -- --

Why, you might be wondering, did the grandmother contact me?

And why so long afterwards?

Because her attempt to identify the driver and thank him in person hit a dead end.

Unicity Taxi couldn't find the driver or even the call her granddaughter made.

Making the thank you public was the next best option.

Of course I too called Unicity Taxi general manager Gord Barton and tried to locate the driver. But even with the approximate address of where the call came from -- somewhere across from Brookside Cemetery on Airport Road -- they couldn't find it or him.

Barton even tried making a broadcast appeal to drivers, and contacted Duffy's in case it was one of their drivers.

No luck.

Barton said often drivers won't step forward to accept a commendation when a passenger calls. So apparently not being able to locate a driver who should be thanked isn't unusual.

According to the grandmother, the young woman has become just as shy and reclusive lately. That started after the surgery on the aneurism that could have killed her if the taxi driver hadn't ignored her directives to just drive her home so she could take a painkiller and go to bed.

Which brings us to the fork in the road of this story.

Why did the driver take the young woman to the hospital instead of home as she was insisting?

Why did he override the convenient stereotype that a semi-conscious young women vomiting in his vehicle might evoke and not just drive her home to sleep it off?

Was it, perhaps, the absence of alcohol on her breath? Or was it the presence of simple caring?

Only one person knows the answer.

I'm sure he'll see this, if only because the other drivers will be curious about who he is, so they'll pass the newspaper around.

They should also be hopeful, as well as curious.

Hopeful that he steps forward and takes a bow on behalf of not only himself, but cabbies collectively.

Right about now the taxi industry could use some good news.

And the face of a hero to go with it.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 12, 2010 B1