Passenger pays stranger to chase bus after being stranded at toilet stop

A man in his 70s had to pay $50 to a member of the public to help him chase down an InterCity bus that had left him stranded after a toilet stop in a Hawke’s Bay town. 

Thomas Fry has shared his tale after the Herald reported on a woman left panicking and abandoned in the rain when another bus driver left her behind in Tokoroa last month. 

He said InterCity has since agreed to refund him the money he spent catching up to the bus. 

Fry, 74, said he was travelling on a Wellington to Auckland bus service last month when the coach stopped in Waipukurau for a 20-minute rest break. 

He wandered to the main street for a “small feed” at a cafe, then headed back to the bus stop thinking he had several more minutes before the service was due to leave again. 

“I walked around the corner and I would have gone about 10 steps and the bus has started to move away,” he said. 

“I was waving my arms frantically in the air ... [the driver] didn’t even look back, he just kept going.” 

He said he would have been about 20m away from the bus when it drove away. 

“I couldn’t believe it. I’m looking at my watch and I thought ‘He’s gone early’.” 

Fry rushed back to the cafe where a young couple had been dining before he left. 

“I said, ‘You wouldn’t be interested in earning yourself $50 cash would you?’” 

The man agreed to take Fry in his car and raced after the bus, catching up with it when it stopped in Hastings, which is about a 40-minute drive away. 

“I says to the driver, ‘What did you leave me behind for?’ He says, ‘Well, you weren’t on the bus’.” 

Fry questioned whether the driver was supposed to do a headcount before leaving stops, but did not get a clear answer, he said. 

He did not know exactly what time the bus left without him, but noted later it appeared the clock on the bus was about four minutes faster than his own watch. 

He was able to reboard the bus and continue on his trip, but said he was out of pocket by $50 because of the misadventure. 

In a statement, InterCity said it had identified Fry’s booking but “found no reports or notes indicating that a passenger was left behind/rejoined the service, or that any unusual incident occurred during the journey”. 

It said it was taking the allegation seriously and wanted to investigate further, but could not provide specific comment without contact details for Fry. 

Fry later said he had been in contact with InterCity and that a representative had agreed to refund his $50. InterCity has not responded to further requests for comment from the Herald. 

Fry was motivated to share his experience after seeing a similar incident reported, and said he wondered how many others had also been left behind during bus breaks. 

The Herald earlier reported a woman, believed to be in her 60s, was left behind in Tokoroa when she was “mere seconds” from reboarding her bus. 

Witness Teresa Ngatai had dropped her son at the bus when she saw a woman emerge from a nearby public lavatory and approach the vehicle. However, when the woman was about 2m away, the doors closed and the bus left. 

“I could hear this lady from behind us, and she was frantic. 

“I could tell how stressed she was. She’s like, ‘No, no, no, that’s my bus, that’s my bus. I need to be on that bus’.” 

Ngatai called her son, who gave his phone to the driver, and after some back and forth the driver agreed to pull over and wait for Ngatai to deliver the woman to the bus with her own car. 

An InterCity spokesperson confirmed it had received a complaint about that case and an investigation was conducted. 

“Our review found that the stop in Tokoroa was a brief boarding stop rather than a scheduled rest stop. 

“The driver advised passengers that the stop would be brief and conducted a check before departing,” InterCity said. 

At the time the coach departed, the driver was unaware a passenger had not reboarded. 

“We acknowledge that this was an upsetting experience for the passenger involved and regret the distress caused.” 

Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 12 years.