Taxi Driver Gets Elderly Couple Home

Link : http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041020/ap_on_fe_st/generous_taxi_driver&e=1

EL PASO, Texas - Taxi driver Ismael Baeza's back seat passengers didn't appear to have any money and didn't seem to know exactly where they lived, but he didn't give up on getting them home. Baeza, 24, picked up an elderly couple Monday who wanted to go to their hometown in Bandera, west of San Antonio.



"About halfway through the trip, I found out that they didn't have the money to pay for the trip," Baeza said in a report in Wednesday's El Paso Times. "It was either drop them off at the next town or keep going. Something told me to just keep going. I couldn't leave them off in one of those little towns."


The trip took 10 hours and covered 500 miles from El Paso to Bandera and would have been a $1,200 fare for Baeza. Baeza's father, Sam, accompanied him and bought food and drinks for the couple along the way.


"I just took them all the way into town and thought, well, it's not about the money anymore," Baeza said Tuesday.


Bandera police believe the couple may have Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites) and aren't sure how they ended up in El Paso. Baeza said the couple told them they couldn't take a bus or plane home because of their parrot. Baeza said the parrot whistled all the way.


Once they were in Bandera, Baeza said he asked the man where his home was and the man said it was four hours away. That's when Baeza asked for police help. They identified the couple and handed them off to sheriff's deputies, who got them to their home in Bandera County.


"In my opinion, the man's a saint," Bandera police Sgt. Mark Burke said of Baeza. "In my job, I don't deal with many nice guys, but as far as I'm concerned, this guy walks on water."


Baeza said the couple gave him several hundred dollars in traveler's checks. He wasn't sure Tuesday if they were any good.


Police later discovered the woman had about $2,000 to $3,000 in her wallet.