**Lyft Driver Credits Her Own ‘Stubbornness’ for Helping an 86-Year-Old Woman Who Failed to Show Up for Ride
**After Elderly Woman Didn’t Show Up for Her Ride, a Philly Lyft Driver Jumped Into Action to Save Her Life.
It was the quick thinking of a Lyft driver in Philadelphia, along with a little love and divine intervention, that helped save an 86-year-old woman who’d fallen in the bathtub and couldn’t get up.
Lyft driver Clara Simmons said she grew worried when she arrived for a scheduled pick-up and her passenger, an elderly woman, was nowhere to be found. (CBS Philly / video screenshot)
Clara Simmons arrived to Millicent Hill’s home at the request of Hill’s nephew, around 7:30 a.m. Saturday to take her to her sister-in-law’s funeral, according to CBS Philly. When the elderly woman failed to show up for her ride, however, Simmons figured something must be wrong.
The Lyft driver said her persistence wouldn’t let her leave, so she stuck around a few minutes longer and even knocked on Hill’s door to see what was going on. Still, she got no answer.
“I parked in front of her door. I’m knocking, knocking, knocking,” Simmons told the station. “We’re talking 10 minutes now — I’m thinking something is wrong.”
Little did she know that Hill was inside struggling and unable able to move after slipping and falling in the bathtub at 4:30 a.m. as she got ready for her sister-in-law’s funeral. The elderly woman, who lives on her own, told CBS Philly the fall left her with a sore shoulder.
“Every once in a while, I’ll get this little sharp pain through it,” she explained. “It’s easing up a little bit, but not enough.”
Hill said that as she was getting out of the tub that morning, she suddenly slipped.
“My feet went up and I couldn’t get out,” she added. “I was really praying for somebody [to help me].”
Her prayers were already answered.
Simmons, the persistent Lyft driver, was still outside fraught with worry after her repeated knocks went unanswered. She said she “needed to see” that Hill was OK. So after a while, she called for paramedics, who arrived to find the elderly woman stuck in the tub — where she had been for five hours.
It was 9:30 by the time help arrived.
Some may call it luck, or a simple act of kindness in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection. However, Simmons, who describes herself as “stubborn,” believes it was God who put her in the right place at the right time.
“I actually sat down on her steps and started talking to God like, ‘You sent me here for a reason. You did not send me here to be the messenger and calling her nephew back on the day of his mother’s funeral to tell him his aunt had passed,’ ” she told CBS Philly. “So I knew it was going to work out.”
Not only was Ms. Millie freed from the tub, but she was also still able to make it to her sister-in-law’s funeral.
Watch more in the clip below.
