Cab Driver Abandons Dialysis Patient, 81, After Argument
Sheriff's spokesman: Taxi company broke no laws
June 26, 2009
Charles Brucks is 81 and uses a walker. He has failing kidneys, a bad heart and a degenerative spine disorder that has left him stooped and a bit wobbly at times.
A week ago, on one of the hottest days of the year, the World War II veteran got into a disagreement with a cabby who was driving him from a dialysis clinic to his east Orange County home, about a mile away, over how long it had taken the driver to arrive. "Admit it," Brucks said. "You [messed] up."
Only he used a curse word instead.
At that point, both sides agree, the Yellow Cab driver said he didn't have to be treated like that, stopped the cab and ordered Brucks out.
After a disagreement in a taxi, a cabby put veteran Charles Brucks, 81, out along Colonial Drive in the heat. Who's to blame here?
The cabby. He should have bitten his lip, been the bigger man and taken Brucks home.
The veteran. Brucks should have shown his displeasure by, say, not leaving a tip -- not by cussing.
Both. They were acting like children.
Brucks said he took a step, stumbled and fell. The driver, he said, took the old man's walker from the trunk, tossed it several yards away and drove off -- leaving Brucks lying by the side of East State Road 50 near Alafaya Trail with no shade or water.
The driver later told his boss that Brucks was standing with his walker when he left -- though a passer-by would find him a half-hour later crumpled on the ground, the walker out of reach.
The temperature was officially recorded as 97 degrees, and the heat index was between 105 and 110.
"I could have died out there," said Brucks, who landed on a sidewalk near a construction area.
Advocates for the elderly are outraged by the incident, but a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Office said no laws were broken.
"It may not have been very nice, but there's nothing criminal about it," said public information officer Jeff Williamson.
Mears Transportation, which owns Yellow Cab, has a policy of following an Orlando ordinance that says a taxi driver may end a trip early "if the driver has reason to believe the passenger(s) may cause bodily injury to him/her, or the passengers become unruly, rowdy or cause physical damage to the vehicle or the driver."
The driver, whom Mears would not identify, is an independent contractor. Mears spokesman Roger Chapin said there have been no other complaints against the driver during the two years he has worked for the company. On this trip, Chapin said, the driver called Dispatch to report that his passenger was "belligerent" and "verbally abusive" and using profanity.
"Clearly, what got lost in all the calls is that the gentleman was 81 and had a walker," Chapin said. "It's unfortunate. ... But at what age or state of mind is it OK to be verbally abusive to a cabdriver?"
The driver, who is black, later told Chapin that Brucks used the N-word -- a claim that Brucks vigorously denied.
Brucks points out that his former son-in-law and grandson are black, and there are numerous pictures of the grandson in Brucks' condominium.
"No way," Brucks said. "If I was going to call him something, I'd have called him something else, but not that."
Chapin said Mears sent a second taxi to pick up Brucks but that the second driver couldn't find him. Instead, an off-duty mail carrier, Randall Powell, spotted Brucks on the ground and stopped.
The trouble began when Brucks had to wait for an hour and 10 minutes after the dialysis clinic called him a cab that afternoon. He'd already spent nearly four hours in dialysis and desperately wanted to go home and go to bed. Though he usually is able to drive himself to dialysis three times a week, he takes taxis when he is feeling particularly bad. He said there had never been a problem before June 20.
First the driver had trouble finding the address; then he had trouble finding Brucks, Chapin said. A dispatcher called the clinic but couldn't get anyone to answer, he added.
Brucks acknowledges that he was ticked off by the time he finally got in the cab, though he insists he didn't call the driver names or threaten him.
After calling Yellow Cab to complain that evening, on Monday he decided to call the sheriff's office.
"I was going to let it go," he said. "I ain't got too much time left. But I just couldn't forget about it."
The sheriff's office sent a deputy, who took a report but said there was probably nothing more that law enforcement could do.
Randy Hunt, president and CEO of the Senior Resource Alliance of Central Florida, called the incident "blatant abuse. I mean, is he [the driver] allowed to endanger the man's life?"
Mary Ellen Grant, executive director of Share the Care, a nonprofit agency that aids family caregivers, said it highlights a "huge need" in the community for adequate public transportation and special training for cabdrivers who deal with the elderly. "So the 81-year-old argued with you?" she said. "Big deal. Be a grown-up and take the high road and take him home."
But Chapin said it was a judgment call and that Mears' policy is adequate. "There is blame to go to both sides of this equation."
Source; OrlandoSentinel.com
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