Uber Driver Says Hospital Sent Her Off With an Unstable Patient Without Warning

What started as another normal evening shift turned into what one Uber driver now calls a “nightmare ride.”

In a report for WSMV 4 Nashville, journalist Marius Payton details how part-time Uber driver Jenna Roher says she was unknowingly used to move a hospital patient from Vanderbilt University Medical Center to another medical facility – with no warning about his condition, no escort at drop-off, and no clear plan for his handoff.

Roher told Payton that the incident left her shaken, in tears on the side of the road, and questioning how something like this could even happen.

A Routine Shift Turns Into a “Nightmare Ride”

According to what Roher told WSMV 4 and reporter Marius Payton, July 24 started out like many other days behind the wheel.

She drives part-time for Uber and says, “For the most part, it’s been great.”

That evening, she got a pickup request that looked familiar — it came from Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Roher told Payton that wasn’t unusual.

She’d picked up from Vanderbilt before, often taking doctors and nurses home after long shifts.

But this ride was different from the moment she pulled up.

Instead of a staff member heading home, she saw a nurse escorting a male patient toward her car.

An Agitated Passenger With No Warning

Roher says the warning signs were obvious from the very beginning – just not to her, until it was too late.

“As they approached my car, he is yelling,” she told Payton.

According to her, the man was shouting, “They took my phone. They’ve got my stuff. They won’t give it back.”

She describes him as clearly agitated even before he got into the vehicle.

At that point, Roher technically had a choice. She could have canceled the ride. She admits that.

But she told WSMV 4 that she tried to give the situation the benefit of the doubt. She thought maybe he’d just been in the hospital for a few days and was frustrated.

She also noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes, which made her think he might be homeless or going through a tough time.

What bothered her even more was the nurse’s behavior. Roher says there was “no interaction” from the Vanderbilt staff member.

“She put him in the car and walked,” Roher recalled. “She looked at me and then walked away.” No explanation. No warning. No heads-up that this man might have behavioral or mental health issues.

Just a destination in the Uber app and a stranger in her back seat.

A Chilling Conversation On The Road

For the first part of the ride, Roher told Payton that the man was fairly quiet.

He mumbled for a few minutes, then went silent. Then came the conversation that changed how she saw the entire situation.

He suddenly asked her, “So, you don’t know where you’re taking me, and you don’t know who I am.”

Roher answered honestly: “No, sir.”

His response shook her.

He paused, then said, “I could be a schizophrenic psychopath, and you just let them put me in your car.” That line, which Roher recounted to WSMV 4, is terrifying on its own.

But it’s even worse when you remember she says no one at Vanderbilt told her anything about his condition, diagnosis, or risks.

As far as she knew, she was just doing a regular Uber trip.

In reality, it appears she was being used as an untrained, unpaid transport driver for a behavioral health patient.

That’s not what ride-share is supposed to be. And it’s certainly not what most drivers think they’re signing up for when they log into the app.

A Dark Driveway, Confusion, And Blame

Roher told Payton that the destination in the app took her to the back of a dark driveway at an unfamiliar building.

Her passenger didn’t like the look of it.

“Mr. so-and-so in the backseat is going, ‘Oh, this doesn’t look good. I don’t like the looks of this,’” she said.

The building turned out to be Mulberry Health and Rehabilitation.

To Roher, it looked very much like Vanderbilt had used Uber to move a patient from one facility to another – without telling her, and apparently without arranging a proper handoff on the other end.

When she arrived, she says no one from Mulberry was waiting outside to receive him.

So she did what any frightened driver would do: she called Uber’s security line.

Eventually, she says, someone from Mulberry came out — but instead of taking charge of their supposed patient, they started pressing her for details.

According to Roher, the staff told her, “We don’t know who that is. You need to give us more information.”

She says they were “yelling” at her, insisting she had to help them and provide more details.

Their line, as Roher describes it, was that she “can’t just drop him off.” Her answer was blunt: “That’s exactly what I can do. That is exactly my job as an Uber driver.”

And honestly, she’s right.

Uber drivers are not case managers. They’re not orderlies. They’re not psychiatric transport specialists.

They’re independent contractors following an address in an app.

If facilities want medical transport, they should be using professional, trained services — not casually handing off unstable patients to strangers in a Toyota.

Emotional Aftermath And Hospital Response

Roher told WSMV 4 that after she left Mulberry, the emotional toll hit her.

“I was just wrecked,” she said.

She drove far enough away that she couldn’t see the facility anymore, then pulled over to the side of the road.

There, she called her sister – in tears.

She wasn’t just rattled by what happened.

She was stunned that Vanderbilt University Medical Center could put her in that position without so much as a conversation.

So she called Vanderbilt to get answers. Roher says it took five days before she actually spoke with someone.

When she finally did, she says they told her they “couldn’t believe” that the patient had been put in her car.

She remembers them saying, “I’m so sorry that happened to you. You know it shouldn’t have happened.”

To WSMV 4, Vanderbilt later sent a written statement about their policies.

The hospital said, in part, that they “maintain comprehensive discharge protocols designed to ensure that patients transition safely to the next phase of care” and that they take safety complaints seriously and are “looking into this matter.”

That’s the kind of language you’d expect from a large institution.

But it doesn’t really answer the main question: how did this happen in the first place?

Someone at that hospital requested an Uber.

Someone decided this patient would be put in a stranger’s personal car.

Someone walked him out and shut the door.

Those aren’t random glitches. Those are choices.

Bigger Questions About Safety, Policy, And Gig Work

WSMV 4 says they also reached out to Uber for comment about their safety features and protections for drivers but did not receive a response in time for the report.

They contacted Mulberry Health and Rehabilitation as well, but the facility has “yet to respond,” according to Payton’s report.

That silence matters. Because this story isn’t just about one scary ride. It highlights a bigger, uncomfortable problem sitting in the middle of modern health care and gig work.

Hospitals and long-term care facilities are under pressure to move patients quickly and cheaply.

Uber and other ride-share companies are everywhere and easy to tap with a few clicks.

But drivers like Jenna Roher are not trained to handle people with serious behavioral or psychiatric issues.

They don’t have backup. They don’t have medical liability coverage. They may not even know what they’re driving into until the passenger is already in the car.

Roher told WSMV 4 she wants at least one concrete change:

“I’d love to know that perhaps you’re going to change the policy and you’re not going to transport someone with behavioral issues through an Uber,” she said.

That’s not an extreme demand. It’s basic common sense.

If a patient is unstable enough to need a nurse escort at pickup and a structured facility at drop-off, it probably shouldn’t be a gig-economy driver in the middle carrying all the risk.

Until those policies change – at hospitals, rehab facilities, and inside ride-share companies – there’s a real chance other drivers could find themselves in the same position.

For now, Roher told Payton she avoids pickup requests around the medical center altogether.

It’s still too traumatic for her.

And that alone says a lot about who’s actually bearing the cost when big systems quietly push their problems onto everyday people just trying to make a living.

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The article Uber Driver Says Hospital Sent Her Off With an Unstable Patient Without Warning first appeared on Survival World.