Within the first week that Austin Correll was driving for Lyft in the fall of 2021, he was sent to pick up passengers at an address that turned out to be for a hospital. When he pulled up to the curb, he found an elderly woman in a wheelchair and another other with a walker, waiting for him \u2014 flanked by four or five nurses.<\/p>\n

He got out and talked to the nurses, who told him that the woman in the wheelchair had just had heart surgery and needed to go to assisted living. The woman with the walker was her daughter, and she also appeared to have some health problems, Correll says. <\/p>\n

Correll, who said he started working for Lyft for a few months while he waited for the results of his bar exam, doesn\u2019t have any medical training. He told The Verge<\/em> he immediately felt unprepared for the responsibility of transporting these two women, who were supposed to go to a motel around two hours away. When the nurses then told him that, on arrival at the motel, he should call an ambulance to help move the passengers into their room, he grew even more uneasy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing I was worried about was, what if there was a medical emergency? This isn\u2019t somebody who got their arm broken, got a cast, and needed to get home,\u201d Correll says. \u201cThese are two people with severe medical issues.\u201d <\/p>\n