- A food delivery driver collapsed outside a luxury apartment building in London.
- A couple 'stepped over' the man after trying to ask about a missing food item in their delivery, said a witness.
A couple in London "stepped over" a delivery driver who was "drifting in and out of consciousness" to inquire about a missing item in their Thai food order late on Thursday evening.
The man, identified only as Mohamed, worked for the popular British food delivery service Deliveroo and collapsed after riding his bicycle to a luxury apartment building in London.
James Farrar, who captured the entire incident and posted it on Twitter, said several people were already calling an ambulance for Mohamed when he arrived. Farrar, who works nearby, happens to be the general secretary of App Drivers and Couriers Union in the UK.
—James Farrar (@jamesfarrar) February 24, 2023
In the midst of the incident, a couple came down to retrieve their Thai food while bystanders tried to keep the driver conscious and waiting for an ambulance by giving him ice and juice, Farrar said.
Farrar said he intervened when the couple was trying to ask the barely-conscious Mohamed questions about something missing in their food order that he "may have given his life to deliver them," he said on Twitter.
"They wanted to have a conversation about what might have been missing, and I said 'are you joking? Do you have no humanity?'" Farrar told the Mirror.
"And they were like 'oh ok' and stepped over him and went upstairs with their food."
—James Farrar (@jamesfarrar) February 24, 2023
Meanwhile, the concierge of the building initially refused to let the driver in, said Farrar. After Farrar asked a second time, he said the staff at Meranti House apartment building agreed to let him sit on the sofa wrapped in a foil blanket.
Apartments in the building are worth about $1 million.
Mohamed's family later came to accompany him, but the ambulance took an hour to arrive on the scene.
"That's shocking to me because the thing is, think about it. There's a Deliveroo driver, and he can bring you your food at a touch of a button within a few minutes, and yet you can't get an ambulance that might save their life for an hour," Farrar told local news outlet LBC.
"We were all deeply concerned by this incident and have spoken to the rider's family to offer our support," a Deliveroo spokesperson said, per LBC.
"Riders are at the very heart of our business and their safety and well-being is our absolute priority."
Farrar tweeted on update on Friday that Mohamed "remains seriously ill" in the hospital but did not say more about his condition to protect his privacy.
Food delivery workers often face dangerous and insecure working conditions, with few protections in the gig-based working environment.
In London, riders working for Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats recently protested against repeated police harassment and other safety concerns they encounter when delivering food.