After This Last Delivery, He Lost His Job — US DoorDash Driver's Vehicle Totaled Mid-Delivery, with Medical and Livelihood Bills Left on a Crowdfunding Page

According to the Times of India, DoorDash driver William Koroma of Maryland was completing his last delivery of the night on Church Road in Bowie when his vehicle suddenly suffered brake failure and was immediately involved in a serious crash. The car was totaled on the spot; Koroma survived, and no other person was seriously injured.

He did not cancel the order. Instead, he managed to reach his customer Glenn Ndibnu and told him he could come to the scene of the accident and pick up the food directly. When Ndibnu arrived, he held up his phone and filmed the scene: several emergency vehicles with flashing lights parked along the road, Koroma's badly wrecked car sitting not far away, and the order he had placed set down on the sidewalk.

"I DoorDashed some food, and my DoorDasher told me he got in a car accident, and he was like, 'I can come meet him and get the food from him,'" Ndibnu said in the video, recounting the message he had received. Before taking the order, he apologized to Koroma and confirmed that he was unhurt.

The accident and the footage of the unusual food pickup spread together across social platforms, and Koroma's financial situation came into public view. In the GoFundMe page he launched, titled "William's Recovery and Transportation Fund," he wrote in his own words: "My vehicle experienced brake failure, and I was involved in a major accident. My car was totaled, and I am deeply grateful that I survived and that no one else was seriously injured."

Another passage, also written by him, lays out more directly the full cost that a single mechanical failure can impose on a gig worker: the job is gone, the tool of the trade is gone, and the bills keep coming. "Since the accident, I have been facing several challenges at once. Losing my vehicle has left me without reliable transportation, and I have also lost my job."

Through the crowdfunding link Ndibnu shared on Instagram, the campaign has raised $16,595 from 850 donations, and Koroma has raised the goal to $18,000. He says the funds will mainly go toward buying another vehicle, with the remainder to cover medical expenses arising from the accident and pressing everyday living costs, including daily meals.

The report does not disclose any specific DoorDash arrangement covering vehicle repair or replacement, income compensation, or medical protection for its independent-contractor drivers after an accident sustained on a delivery; whether Koroma himself carries commercial insurance, the amount of his accumulated medical bills, and how responsibility for the accident is determined — none of that information appears in the reporting that has been made public. The exact date of the crash is also unclear — the reposting describes it only as "last month" — and there is no record of any regulator having opened an investigation into the brake failure. Whether the "lost his job" he refers to means losing his DoorDash orders, or also losing a separate formal job, is not distinguished in the text.

Gig platforms, which set the minimum bar of entry at a motorized private vehicle and treat that vehicle as the means of production, push every delivery's vehicle depreciation, fuel costs, mechanical breakdowns, and crash costs onto the thin margins of the workers' own small operations. The GoFundMe page lists "recovery" and "transportation" side by side as the two urgent fundraising goals; the cost structure of this accident is already written into that crowdfunding link.