Having Passion

Having Passion
Dano Smith, Mohawk Mobility, Arizona

I’ve been told I’m passionate. Not a bad thing to be right?  It’s a passion for driving.  I have been a professional driver for almost 32 years and over 2 million safe driving miles.  In 2008 I decided to leave a very nice job as an independent contractor with a well known small package delivery company to start my own non-emergency medical transportation company. 

This came about after an unfair amount of tragedy in my family. In succession my father, my mother-in -law and then father-in-law all died of cancer.  All three spent their last months in hospice, and all never deserved it. Meaning they had lifestyles that didn’t contribute to their cancer.  It happens that way sometimes. 

My mother was left a widow, my wife an orphan, and I never really questioned why because I’ve always believed that death was a part of life;  so live it to the fullest.  Not one of my sisters lived near me when my mom decided to move back to Arizona from California
after Pops died.  I tried to convince her to stay here in the first place but I’m sure you all know how easy it is to convince your parents you may actually be right about something.  Mom was in relatively good health and had a nice place to call her own. One night while taking a walk in 2007 she tripped on her own shoe, fell and broke her femur.  A three month recovery after having her leg put back together with baling wire, screws and titanium she was back at home with my sister looking after her needs. My sister, put her life on hold and came from Oregon to look after her during her recovery. 

Before my sister left to go back home we thought we had it all planned. Home health and physical therapy came three times a week, Meals on Wheels came daily, she even had a Life Alert pendant.  Approximately three hours after my sister left, mom fell again and broke the same femur.  I didn’t find her until two days later when Meals on Wheels called to admonish me for not cancelling her deliveries. Since she went to bed early, and I worked 14 hour days, and at the time didn’t carry a cellular phone everywhere like now, so when she didn’t answer the phone in the evening I figured she had gone to bed.  I’d heard nothing from home health or PT; until I got the call on Saturday morning I figured she was fine.  When I got to her home and found her on the floor I wondered how she was still alive.  I also wondered why she didn’t press her button that was hanging from her neck.

It was at this point that I determined mom could not live alone and I began this journey that I never dreamed I would be on.  Mom moved into a residential group home and had many appointments to take her to doctors and x-rays.  The transportation left a lot to be desired. In an eight week period of time she had six appointments, four of them could be considered failures, two moderately so.  They picked her up sometimes an hour and a half before an appointment only 3 miles away and then she was left waiting up to as many as 4 hours to get picked up again.  There seemed to be little concern for her time or condition, in addition to her healing bones she has hyper tension and diabetes both of which need to be monitored.  The owner of the group home suggested to me that with my experience in driving that perhaps I could do a better job.  I agreed and so I went about learning what it would take to run my own transportation service with an emphasis on “service”.  I decided there were enough companies running around hither and yon and what was needed was a company that focused on the patient and their needs and not my own.  What was created was Mohawk Mobility, a non emergent medical transportation company whose main focus was on quality customer service.  My father was a full blooded Mohawk Indian and the name is to honor his memory, besides which it was distinctive and people seem to remember it.  Our desire is to serve seniors in such a way that they can get into and out of their appointments in a timely manner, that the vehicles are clean and well maintained.  The drivers are compassionate and that’s not just a requirement of the job, it’s a requirement of life.  This is not just a job, it’s a passion that I never realized I had for people I didn’t even know.  To us, it’s an honor to transport these people who have endured so much and who deserve to be treated with respect and compassion.  The relationships I have forged and the people I have met along this journey will always be with me, and I look forward to sharing their stories with you in the future.

www.mohawkmobility.com