Wrong Number Turns Stranger into 86-Year-Old's Hero

When Richard Hayes got a call from Whakātane Hospital asking him to pick up his father-in-law on Friday, he had some news for them: the patient wasn't his father-in-law. The hospital had dialed the wrong Richard Hayes entirely.

Most people would have corrected the mix-up and moved on with their day. But Hayes saw an elderly man who needed a ride home, and he wasn't about to leave 86-year-old Norman Camburn stranded at the hospital.

The hospital explained they couldn't reach Camburn's wife, so they'd tried calling his son-in-law, who happened to share Hayes's name. Hayes didn't hesitate.

"I said, well, he lives in Whakatane," Hayes told Stuff. "It's hardly a bustling metropolis. I can come and pick him up."

The meeting outside the hospital was perfectly awkward. Camburn looked at his ride with confusion, trying to place the familiar-seeming face.

"He was looking at me going 'Oh, I think I recognise you', and I said 'Well no you don't because I've never seen you before in my life'," Hayes recalled.

The drive took just 15 minutes. Hayes dropped Camburn off at home, where his wife stood in the driveway looking equally baffled by the stranger delivering her husband.

Camburn insisted on paying Hayes or giving him a gift, but Hayes waved it off. "Everywhere's 15 minutes in Whakatane," he said. "It actually took me longer to get him in the car than to drive there."

Sunny's Take

Camburn's daughter Joanne posted the story on Facebook that same day, hoping to find the mystery Good Samaritan. "If this is you I would like to thank you from the bottom of my whanau's heart for this," she wrote.

She soon tracked him down and thanked him in person. Meanwhile, the story spread through the small town like wildfire.

The locals have given Hayes nicknames: Batman of Whakatane and Richard II. Someone even wrote a song about him.

Hayes, who is retired, brushes off the attention with characteristic humility: "We'll just call it my good deed for the day."