A simple act of kindness by a Whakatāne man has captured the attention of locals after he helped an elderly stranger get home when a hospital mistakenly contacted him.
According to a report by Stuff, Richard Hayes received an unexpected phone call from Whakatāne Hospital on Friday, asking him to collect his father-in-law. However, there was one problem: the patient was not related to him at all.
The hospital had been trying to arrange transport home for 86-year-old Norman Camburn and, unable to reach his wife, contacted his son-in-law. The issue was that Camburn’s son-in-law happened to share the same name as Hayes.
Rather than leave the elderly man stranded, Hayes volunteered to pick him up himself.
“I said, well, he lives in Whakatane,” Hayes told Stuff. “It’s hardly a bustling metropolis. I can come and pick him up,” Stuff has quoted.
When Hayes arrived at the hospital, the pair quickly realised they had never met before.
“He was looking at me going ‘Oh, I think I recognise you’, and I said ‘Well no you don’t because I’ve never seen you before in my life’,” as quoted by Stuff.
Hayes drove Camburn home and was met by an equally puzzled reaction from the man's wife when they arrived.
“He got a confused look from Camburn’s wife in the driveway,” Hayes recalled.
Despite Camburn offering payment or a gift to thank him, Hayes declined.
“It was just a 15-minute trip,” he said. “Everywhere’s 15 minutes in Whakatane. It actually took me longer to get him in the car than to drive there,” Stuff has quoted.
The story came to light after Camburn’s daughter, Joanne Hayes, shared it on Facebook later that day.
“If this is you I would like to thank you from the bottom of my whanau’s heart for this,” she said, as quoted by Stuff.
She later managed to identify the Good Samaritan and personally thanked him.
The unusual mix-up was also witnessed by another person who said they overheard the hospital staff member making the call.
“They did ask if it was the wrong one and he said yes but he had sorted his ride,” Stuff has quoted.
Hayes believes the hospital may have located his contact details through an internal directory, as he had previously visited the facility himself.
“They weren’t amazingly perturbed that I wasn’t the right Richard,” he said. “Though I guess if I’d said no then they’d try to find him,” as quoted by Stuff.
As news of the incident spread, locals praised Hayes for his generosity, with many calling it a uniquely New Zealand story.
“Only in New Zealand,” one commenter wrote beneath Joanne Hayes’ Facebook post, Stuff has quoted.
The retired Hayes has since been given a number of affectionate nicknames by the community, including “Batman of Whakatane” and “Richard II”. Someone has even written a song about him, as quoted by Stuff.
Despite the attention, Hayes remains modest about his actions.
“We’ll just call it my good deed for the day,” as quoted by Stuff.