Quick reflexes, luck save Vegas cabby’s life in shooting
A cabdriver’s quick reflexes and composure helped him survive after being ambushed and shot at six times by a “young guy” in a North Las Vegas neighborhood.
It also helped that an ambulance just happened to be at the truck stop the wounded cabbie drove himself to.
Two taxi videos showed two of the bullets hitting the 62-year-old man, said Jay Nady, owner of A Cab Taxi. The victim is expected to survive.
On Saturday, Nady, 68, told the Review-Journal he did not want to release the man’s name or where he is recovering due to concerns for the driver’s safety.
The shooting is under investigation and no arrests had been made as of 9 p.m. Saturday, said officer Aaron Patty, a spokesman for the North Las Vegas Police Department.
“They shoot him in the back, and they didn’t even ask for money, they didn’t try to rob him,” Nady said.
Shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday, on the man’s first call of the day, the videos show him pulling into a cul-de-sac in a residential neighborhood on Copper Stone Court, near East Alexander Road and North Fifth Street.
He drives up to a male sitting on a utility box and stops.
“You call for a taxi?” he asks.
The male responds by saying that his “uncle,” who was at the end of the street, made the call.
“You want some water or something,” the male asks as the cabdriver drives forward.
The driver’s “no, thank you” is rebutted with a “You sure? Anything?”
That is when another male wearing a hooded sweatshirt is seen running behind the cab and toward the driver’s side. The cabdriver hears something, which Nady said was the gunman cocking the weapon. After he notices that he’s being ambushed, he takes off.
He leans forward as he turns to get out of the cul-de-sac and two shots ring out. The second shot tears a hole in the taxi’s headrest. Two more shots follow, and then two more.
The shot that went through the headrest could have killed him if he hadn’t leaned forward, Nady said.
“Help, help, help,” the man is heard telling a cab dispatcher as his breathing intensifies.
Later he’s heard telling a 911 dispatcher, “I’ve just been shot.”
He gives instructions of where he is heading — Morton Travel Plaza at the intersection of Cheyenne Avenue and Losee Road, less than two miles where the shooting occurred.
When he parks at the truck stop, he slumps forward.
Police arrive and then the paramedics.
Luckily, the paramedics were inside the truck stop — on a coffee break, Nady said.
Only six minutes went by from when the shooting happened to when the driver was attended, according to Nady, who added that doctors said if the response hadn’t been as fast, the man would have “bled out … he’d be dead.”
He had lost consciousness on the way to the hospital and doctors operated on him immediately, Nady said. The wounds included one to his shoulder and another to his side. That bullet went out through his stomach.
The cabdriver was described by Nady, who had visited him several times at the hospital, as a “wonderful, nice and sweet guy.”
The cabby has laughed since the shooting but also has been upset about the incident, Nady said.
Nady said it was the first shooting ever of a A Cab Taxi driver.
He plans to use the video, which already has been shown to other cabbies, for training purposes.
Contact Ricardo Torres at rtorres@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0381. Find him on Twitter: @rickytwrites.
