Delivery rider earns praises for stopping to help elderly man in trouble

By: Patrick Beech

An elderly man was about to collapse by the roadside while on his way home to Tanjung Aru in Kota Kinabalu.

Lucky for him, at that time, delivery rider, Mohd Sazwandi Sumarti, 26, was passing and immediately stopped to lend a hand.

Though Sazwandi was rushing for a double-delivery order, he noticed the man in trouble at the Lido overhead bridge about 4.40pm.

“I saw him sitting by the roadside, looking like he was about to fall over to the road and there was no one who stopped to check on him,” he said, adding that he turned back because he didn’t feel right leaving the man without finding out what happened.

Sazwandi said when he reached the man, he noticed that he was almost unconscious and there were foams and dried blood on his mouth. There was also a urine pouch attached to the man’s body.

“I quickly picked him up and took him to the side as there were too many cars driving by.

“I asked where he was going and whether he was sick,” Sazwandi said, adding that he messaged his customers informing them that he would be late as he had to help someone.

The man told Sazwandi that he had just gotten his medicine from the nearby Luyang Clinic and was walking home to Tanjung Aru, which is about 8km away.

According to reports in The Star, by then, three others, including two delivery men, had also stopped to help.

“We called the ambulance as we felt that he needed further medical attention and there was no way he could walk home in that condition,” said Sazwandi.

The man told Sazwandi that his children were working, and that he was fine and could still walk home, but they insisted he stayed put and waited for the ambulance to arrive.

He reluctantly agreed as he was also too weak to argue further.

“Not long after that, the ambulance arrived and the man was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for treatment,” said Sazwandi.

The whole incident was captured on his helmet camera, which he shared in his social media account.

The video was widely circulated and shared with the aim of alerting the man’s family of the incident.

As seen at the end of the recording, the man looked grateful as he was placed on a stretcher and carried into the ambulance, and waved goodbye to the man who took the effort to help him.

Sazwandi, who has been a delivery man for almost two years, later proceeded to send the food, which had turned cold, to his customers.

His act of kindness had since earned him praises from social media users.