In a now-viral Facebook post, one Facebook user shared his ride-share experience after he mistook his driver for being drunk when he was actually having a stroke in the Phillipeans.
Sid Maderazo shared how he requested the driver to pick up their nanny at his home in Pasig City but he decided to cancel the trip after he heard how the driver was speaking.
Maderazo said after he booked the ride, the driver called to request directions.
“His voice was unusual, his tone was slightly rude and his speech was very slurry and unintelligible. Since I couldn’t understand a word he said, I hung up, slightly annoyed,” he stated in the post.
He then decided to call the driver back as he saw him coming up to the entrance of his gated village.
“This time he sounded much worse, extremely incomprehensible at that point. I was almost certain that he was drunk or under the influence,” he said.
He then said he did his best to try and talk with him but it was difficult to understand.
The driver then stopped talking and hung up.
“Peeved and concerned about our yaya‘s (nanny) safety, I cancelled the booking and got another Grab. I wanted to report the erring driver to Grab immediately but decided to do it the next day.”
Grab is a rideshare service.
But it was discovered that the driver was not inebriated at all.
Maderazo found out the following morning from the village’s security guards that the driver had a stroke and was taken to the hospital.
“I called his number and a woman answered the phone, I explained who I was, and that I wanted to know if he was ok and if I could assist in any way. The woman tearfully said, ‘Wala na po si Papa (My Papa is gone).’”
The driver was Rudy Salvo, 54. Donna May Ranes, 19, his daughter, shared with Coconuts Manila via text message how her father passed away at the East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City.
Maderazo shared in his Facebook post – according to the village guard on duty the night of the incident – saw Salvo “trying to unlock his phone, maybe desperately trying to call his family one last time until he fell unconscious.”
He then went on to say that the village ambulance arrived an entire hour after the incident and allegedly did not take him to the hospital immediately. According to the guards, they first looked for his wallet to be sure he had money to be hospitalized.
“This angered me. I can’t believe that hospitals or ambulances prioritize money over human life,” Maderazo said in his post.
Ranes went onto say how she was also angered when she heard the allegation.
She shared with Coconuts in Filipino: “I’m angry because instead of prioritizing my father’s life, they had to check first his wallet. This is the system in the Philippines, nothing has changed.”
She also encouraged others “to be more patient with people who seem different, they might be going through something or fighting a battle we don’t know about.”
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