WHEN 50-year-old Duhaney Park, St Andrew, taxi driver Dave Johnson picked up two male passengers along his route 10 years ago, he had no idea moments later he would feel the cold hard metal of a gun being forced into his mouth.

Johnson told the Jamaica Observer that the incident happened around 7:00 pm in Coopers Hill, Red Hills, St Andrew.

He said the men used a ruse to get him to stop the vehicle by stating that they needed to urinate. Being an accommodating taxi operator, Johnson stopped the car, watched the men exit the vehicle, and waited for them to return.

“Mi never shut off the car, that a di greatest thing, mi just put mi foot pan the break and have the car in a ‘drive’ said way. By the time dem seh dem done pee is a gun that a come out,” Johnson said.

He told the Observer that the man who sat in the front passenger seat carried the gun.

“Him come ‘round pan mi and jook the gun in a mi mouth and seh mi fi lock off the car, [but] mi never lock off the car. The one weh did in a di back, him a come with one long knife. So, the long knife weh mi see, mi a say mi can’t mek him come back in a di car with that long knife because him a go cut mi neck, ‘cause him a come behind the [driver’s] seat now,” Johnson continued.

Seeing the man holding the gun whispering to the other man, Johnson said although he didn’t clearly hear what the man said he suspected that it couldn’t have been good.

Thinking quickly, Johnson pushed his car seat back just as the man with the knife had one foot inside the vehicle. This, he recalled, prevented that man from entering the car and allowed him to escape.

“When the gun left my mouth, him buss a shot, [then] mi rock it [the car] to the inside and swing him off. [It] look like mi swing him off in a one gully,” Johnson recalled.

He added that he wasted no time as he sped off to the Red Hills Police Station.

“When mi go to the police station and report it, dem seh dem nah go up deh so because dem did a kill off some police,” said Johnson.

Feeling peeved that the police refused to help, Johnson recalled heading back home for the night.

The proud father of eight said this was not the only time someone had tried to rob him while he was operating his taxi.

Unfortunately the other incident, which happened a few years later, left him with a scar on his shoulder that was caused by a machete.

Johnson said while driving a male passenger to Chancery Hall one evening, the man pulled out a knife and “jook” him in his side.

According to Johnson he immediately pulled up the handbrake and jumped out of the vehicle.

“Mi fly out a di car; even the car nearly mash up. But when mi rush fi two stone and fling off a him, him run down pan mi and back out one long cutlass and run mi down. Mi affi run ‘round mi car and mi face him now. Mi bend under and buck him down with me body. A so him give me a chop right pan me shoulder.

“But him drop after me buck him and the cutlass fly out a him hand, and me start wrestle him. A taxi man did a pass and see wah gwaan and kind a rush to him, and him jump two fence and gone in a gully,” Johnson said, underscoring the dangers of being a taxi driver.

Name: Dave Johnson

Age: 50 years old

Length of Career: 26 years

Route: Price Rite to Duhaney Park, St Andrew