Idle talk saves life

“…is inside!” was the first thing 58-year-old Ray Kausae says he heard when he regained consciousness in his silver Mercedes.

The voice belonged to a white Australian man of about 40 years, Ray estimated in a daze. He was talking to a parking ranger who was busy booking Ray’s car for overstaying the two-hour limit.

Disoriented, Ray tried to get up. He succeeded on his second attempt, but the man had rushed off before Ray could thank him for saving his life.

Ray recalls what happened next as follows:

Ray: “Hi, sorry, I didn’t realise I’d overstayed the parking limit. I can’t believe I’ve been slumped in there that long.”

“I chalked you at 1:45pm. It’s now 4pm. You can take the matter to court,” said the ranger, a man in his 20s or 30s of Indian appearance.

“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that I had fainted in there and that’s the reason I failed to move the car. Didn’t you see me collapsed inside there? It would’ve been very kind if you had knocked on the window to awaken me. I just have this condition.”

The ranger continued to write the ticket. “No, I didn’t see you. As I said: you can take the matter to court.”

“I’m sorry I overstayed but would it be possible to cancel the ticket in consideration of my condition? I can move the car now.”

“I would’ve cancelled it but I can’t. Look, there’s no cancel button available at this stage. You see?” he said, showing Ray his handheld device.

Frustrated, Ray got back into his car and started off, at which point the ranger tossed the ticket through the open passenger-side window.

Ray has since put up more than 40 posters around Surry Hills offering $500 to the “good Samaritan”.

“I sincerely believe I owe my life to the good Samaritan who talked to the parking ranger, on Collins Street Surry Hills NSW, at about 4pm on 30th June,” Ray wrote in a statement.

“I think he spoke just at the right moment and that triggered the survival instincts inside my body. I dread what might have happened had he not called out at that precise moment. I very much doubt my chances of regaining consciousness any later.”

He would also like the man to testify in court.

Ray says he contacted the Office of State Revenue to dispute the $84 fine, but the ranger now denies ever having spoken to him.

“If I could trace the good Samaritan … that could actually help me a lot,” Ray said.

“It’s probably not so much the fine, but it’s just the moral behind it that I find despicable.”

Before falling unconscious in his car, Ray says he was in the city renewing his health insurance card.

He has been undergoing treatment at St Vincents Hospital for heart damage caused by high blood pressure.

He says his medication sometimes gives him dizzy spells.

Ray works as a software engineer and lives in Woollahra.

by Lawrence Bull