I have a taxi story, although not from the driver's perspective. It was early one morning a couple years ago on Long Island. Having spent the night at my in-laws' house, I needed to get to the LIRR station to get to work in Midtown. I Called the local cab company who dispatched a driver whose name I would later learn was Mel.
Mel pulled up, grunted in response my good morning as I got in the cab, and we headed off in the direction of the train station. About four minutes into the trip, we made a left turn off a busy commercial strip onto a somewhat less busy street. Just as we made the turn, Mel sort of sighed and let his foot off the gas. I could feel the cab slow down slightly but it was still going about 25-30 mph. I thought at first that perhaps it was experiencing engine problems and Mel's sigh was a sign of disgust. Within about a second though it became apparent that it was Mel and not the cab that was having "engine trouble." Mel started making these guttural snoring sounds and had slumped over against the driver side door.
Meanwhile the cab is continuing down the street at a steady clip as I am trying to rouse Mel from the back seat. I was thinking to myself that only I could end up with a narcoleptic cab driver. Luckily this was not a NYC taxi with the plexi-glass partition and I was able to lean over into the front and at least steer the cab to avoid hitting oncoming traffic. I tried to throw the gear shift into park which did not slow the cab down at all, despite the grinding of the gears that resulted. So, here I am proceeding down the street, steering the cab from the back seat with Mel slumped over in the front seat and wondering what the hell to do. I see that we are approaching a five-way intersection up ahead and I start to panic a bit. Not knowing what else to do, I steer the cab into the parking lot of a library, which is empty since its only about 7:15 a.m. Turning the cab into the lot didn't seem to slow it down much and I still needed to get the thing to stop so I steered it up onto the grass and into a stockade fence. This stopped the cab with some damage to the fence. Still in shock a bit from trying to process what just happened, I sat there for a few seconds as Mel, now more slumped than ever after the impact, continued his labored guttural snoring which by now had become much more irregular.
As I got out of the back seat of the cab, an employee of the library pulled up for work. He came over and helped me lift Mel out of the front seat and onto the ground. Neither of us knew CPR but a policeman pulled up within about a minute. He pulled a defibrillator from his trunk and proceeded to zap Mel several times on the chest, although I had the impression this was the first time the Cop had ever had occasion to use the thing and really wasn't too sure of what he was doing.
Anyway, Old Mel was not looking good at this point. He had stopped making any breathing sounds and had turned a sickly ashen shade. Soon an ambulance arrived and they went to work on him and then hauled him off to the hospital. Shortly after the ambulance pulled out, Mel's wife pulled up, wondering where he was and how he was doing. She mentioned that he had been diagnosed with an aneurysm recently. Mrs. Mel was strangely calm and didn't realize I think how bad off he was, even as she picked up a single shoe of Mel's that had fallen off as we lifted him out of the cab. She soon left to go to the hospital to check on him. I learned later from the police department that Mel didn't make it.
After finishing up answering questions from the cops on the scene, the cab company sent another cab to take me to the train station. The ride was gratis.
I couldn't help but think how the last person Mel saw and spoke to in his life was me...Poor bastard, he probably deserved better than that...Not sure if there is anything to take from this story other than the fact that cabbies with aneurysms maybe shouldn't be driving...