We’ve all done it before: raced to get on a bus or a train, then sat down only to second-guess whether we were even on the right one.
If you rely on public transport to get around, you’ve probably come to expect someone to ask, “This is going to this place, right?” as the bus pulls away from the station.
The thought of unknowingly being transported in the wrong direction is as anxiety-inducing as it is embarrassing.
For one woman, catching the wrong bus was an even bigger source of agitation – as she almost missed seeing her mom.
Jacqueline Mason’s 79-year-old mother, Eileen McGrugan, lives in an assisted care facility.
COVID-19 has hit care homes the hardest, and important measures have been put in place to prevent the spread of the virus while still allowing families to safely meet up with one another.
Eileen’s assisted care facility currently only allows family members to visit in pre-scheduled half-hour slots.
Jacqueline was on her way to visit her mom, having booked a slot, when she realized her terrible mistake.
She’d somehow got onto the wrong bus, and her 30-minute slot was closing in.
Distraught at the idea of her mom thinking she’d forgotten about her, Jaqueline headed to her bus driver for help.
Speaking to Sky News, she recalled:
“I started crying, and I said, ‘I’m not too sure if I’m on the right bus.’”
Alex “Alec” Bailey, the bus driver in question, then made the decision to do something he’d never dared to do before.
He apologized to his passengers, explaining that he needed to help a woman who hadn’t seen her mother for a long time.
Without a thought for how this could impact his job, he took his bus off route and managed to drop Jacqueline off at her mom’s care home just in time for her half-hour slot.
According to Alec, he had seen the tears in Jacqueline’s eyes, and his heart “went out to her”.
He added:
“A lot of people have suffered this year and you’ve seen on the news, people not able to see their mother or their father in the homes and it just struck a chord with me… I just said to myself, I have to get this woman as close as I can to that home.”
Thankfully, his passengers were understanding of Jacqueline’s situation, and nobody kicked up a fuss about the detour, which put an extra 7 or 8 minutes on Alec’s schedule.
Alec, a 57-year-old from south Belfast, Ireland, has been a bus driver for more than 35 years.
He told Sky News that when he returned home from work that night, he couldn’t stop thinking about Jacqueline. He could only hope that she had made it to her appointment in time.
Never had Alec expected his detour to go viral- but then his daughter told him he was “all over social media”.
Alec ended up being recognized by the CEO of Translink, the bus service he worked for, for “going above and beyond the call of duty”.
People on social media hailed Alec a “hero”, but he remains humble, saying he was just happy to have been able to help.
Speaking to the BBC, he said:
“The smile and the joy on her face just said it all and I was just so pleased. It was just a nice, magical moment. It was just the right thing to do.”