Anyone would be excited for the birth of their own child, but this taxi driver elevated the special event into a scene worthy of an action movie.

No one could blame Twitter user @kakumaro for high emotions. His wife had suddenly gone into labor, and that meant his future child was preparing to make their grand world debut. The next step would be to get her to hospital – but of course, there’s no way they could have her ride the subway at this late stage, and walking there was out of the question.

“Taxi!”

▼ He took a snap of his receipt for the journey, provided by the KU taxi company. “Thanks for your business, make sure you didn’t leave anything in the car!”

In his tweet, @kakumaro wrote:

“My wife went into labor so we took a taxi to the hospital. We didn’t even tell the driver anything about her pregnancy, but he put the pedal to the metal and zipped in and out of all manner of backstreets to deliver us right to the door of the hospital. When I was paying the fare, other people stopped by to tell him “Move your car out of the way” to which he snapped back “There’s no time for that!”. It really felt like in a movie where the guy says, “It’s all up to you now! I’ve got it covered back here!”

Thanks so much, old timer.

In a reply to the original tweet, @kakumaro added: “I couldn’t even say goodbye to him” and then “I can’t even imagine being a taxi driver, just doing my normal job and then realizing I have to get a pregnant woman to hospital, and then it dawning on me that she’s practically giving birth in my workplace…”

A helpful commenter pointed out that KU is one of the few taxi companies in Japan with a female CEO, which might be why the driver was especially sympathetic. What’s more, other commenters appeared with their own great stories. @skmro_mro wrote:

“I used a taxi when I was pregnant, too! They told me that they would take note of my number, so if I called them and couldn’t talk, they would know just to send a car right to my home. It was so reassuring to know I didn’t have to worry about that!”

“When the time came they drove me carefully and quickly, and even let me know that it was okay for me to pay at a later date! These days, what with the nuclear family becoming more common and all, it’s really good to see companies do stuff like this. (I even asked them to send a car that would accept iD-card touch payment and they did!). The old fellow who served you is really wonderful!”

Twitter user @sakurasanri1964 provided perspective from the other side, too:

https://twitter.com/sakurasanri1964/status/1016857818404569088

“It really does my heart good to see all this respect for taxi drivers. I myself ferry countless pregnant women to the hospital in just one month, and some of them are practically delivering the baby in the car! You want to go as fast as possible to avoid any complications with the pregnancy, but you still have to drive safely. Anyone carrying a baby also needs to be driven super safely! Delivering such customers to their destinations is one of the finest missions we can complete in this profession.”

No wonder so many taxi drivers need to steal a nap when they’re off duty, with all that hard work to ensure babies get delivered with no problems. Don’t worry – that was definitely the case with @kakumaro’s wife. He uploaded a picture of their beautiful newborn the next day.

https://twitter.com/kakumaro/status/1016341126653964288

“Thanks so much for spreading my story so far! Here is my healthy daughter, who came into the world with a bang after that old timer sped her to the hospital. Both she and her mom are doing just great, thanks to everyone’s hard work. #CueExplosions #Birth”

This story does seem like a perfect fit for a dramatic scene right out of a TV drama. If they choose to adapt it for stage, though, we know just the service to play the leading role!

Source: Twitter/@kakumaro via Hachima Kikou
Featured image: Pakutaso