A 78-year-old woman has been filmed being dragged out of a taxi onto a street by the driver who she said tried to steal her phone and money.
The shocking incident, which was caught on video and posted to Twitter, shows the male driver pulling the woman out of the backseat and closing the car door as she lies on the street trying to save herself by whacking the driver with her walking stick.
The woman had booked the Access-A-Ride taxi service to take her to a physical therapy appointment in Brooklyn, New York, in the US.
She raised the alarm after she noticed that the driver drove past the drop-off point.
She claims he refused to let her out of the vehicle.
The pair got into an argument that ended with the driver ripping her out of the car by her leg around 3:30 pm, on East 35th Avenue near the corner of Avenue N in Marine Park, the report said.
A 35-year-old member of the public passing by tried to intervene after seeing the horrific incident.
"What's going on?" he says.
"Call the police, he stole my phone", the woman shouts out while lying on the floor screaming in distress.
The man got the victim's phone back, which is when the driver fled in his vehicle and hit the member of the public who was trying to block him from fleeing the scene.
The good Samaritan then checked on the woman, asking if she was okay. She replied that she wasn’t okay.
“I’m a 78-year-old lady and he threw me out of the cab, he took my money, he took my phone,” she said.
The senior put her face in her hands as she sat on the roadway with her shoes knocked off.
Both the good Samaritan and the woman were taken to the hospital and are in stable condition.
The driver fled from the scene and is wanted for robbery, assault and hit and run with injuries.
In a statement, a Taxi and Limousine Commission spokesperson said: "TLC is aware of the incident and is working with the NYPD on their investigation."
