HandyDART booking agent turns routine call into a heroic act

Satveer!

I’m still away on holiday until Monday September 13! But I’m proud to present this story by Tyler Heshka from Coast Mountain Bus Company’s internal communications team, about a HandyDART staff person who went the extra mile.

The TransLink family always goes the extra mile for the customer, but sometimes our employees do very extraordinary things. If it wasn’t for the actions of a HandyDART booking agent last month, a customer calling to cancel her ride could have lost her life.

Nursing student Satveer Berar has been working as a booking agent for HandyDART for just over a year while completing her studies. On July 26, a woman called and wanted to cancel her HandyDART ride to a doctor’s appointment due to illness. Satveer immediately noticed the caller was having difficulty breathing, and asked her to describe her symptoms.

The caller said she was experiencing chest pains and shortness of breath, which made Satveer realize this was potentially more serious than the caller realized. Thinking quickly, she offered to call an ambulance on behalf of the caller who politely declined. However, after some reassurance, Satveer talked the caller into letting her call an ambulance to come check on her. She then hastily called the BC Paramedics with the caller’s address and symptoms.

Nine days later, the woman called HandyDART to express her sincere appreciation for Satveer’s assistance on the day she called to cancel her ride. She explained that by the time the ambulance arrived at her house, she had suffered a heart attack. She was hospitalized for over a week . If it wasn’t for Satveer’s heroic act, the customer wasn’t sure she’d still be here today.

The HandyDART call centre is located in Surrey and employs approximately 65 full-time and casual employees. On average, the call centre takes between 1700-1800 calls every day. One of HandyDART’s goals is to enhance the lives of the people they touch by helping them be independent. Satveer’s actions are just one example of how HandyDART employees improve the lives of their customers every single day.

Thanks for doing such an amazing job, Satveer — and thanks for sharing her story, Tyler!

A ride-along with HandyDART: taking folks with mobility issues to the Games

Dave the HandyDART driver at Metrotown bus loop!

I did a ride-along on Wednesday, February 24 to see how our HandyDART service has been helping out for the Games period!

If you don’t know, HandyDART is our door-to-door, shared-ride service for passengers with physical or cognitive disabilities, using specially-equipped vehicles to meet their needs. Passengers register with the service, then can book their trips with HandyDART, who coordinates drivers to pick them up and drop them off as needed, sort of like a taxi service. (The service is delivered by a local contractor, MVT Canadian Bus, through an operating contract with TransLink.)

For the Games, HandyDART registered 70 visitors who required their assistance. But overall, a little over 1,000 bookings were made for Olympic venues in February, which includes both these visitors and locals. (Before the Games, visitors with mobility issues were informed about the service, and they could register for trips through a special Olympic Visitor’s HandyDART application.)

The loads are similar to what HandyDART would normally carry during non-Olympic periods, but the trips have required extra work, as they require more-than-normal coordination with VANOC and the HandyDART drivers, as they are affected by the impromptu happenings in the downtown core.

So let’s take a look at what a HandyDART trip to a venue is like, and learn a bit more about our visitors and the service itself.

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