Police are searching for a heartless taxi driver who ordered a woman in labor to get out of his cab -- she then was forced to take a motorcycle and suffered a miscarriage in which the baby died.

Guo Meiling, 28, who was abandoned by an unidentified taxi driver on Thursday, was to be released from a hospital yesterday.

No information was available about the cabbie, since the distraught passenger and her sister-in-law forgot to take a receipt. Taxi company officials said the cabbie should be fired.

Doctors in the Putuo District Central Hospital said the woman was in stable condition following emergency surgery on Thursday.

The cabbie had claimed he could not find the way to the hospital and demanded the seven-month pregnant woman, who was going into labor, get out.

Both the woman and her sister-in-law, who accompanied her, only remembered that the driver was in his 30s.

"It was such a chaos we even forgot to ask for the receipt," said the sister-in-law, surnamed Lin.

Guo was going into labor around 1pm and hired a taxi on Huangjiang Road, going to the hospital with Lin.

But after a four-kilometer ride, the cabbie claimed at Cao'an Road that he could not find the hospital.

"I told him it was no joking matter, but he told us to get off," Lin recalled. They hired two motorcycle taxis but Guo experienced major labor pains and they got off.

Lin cradled Guo by the side of the road. A crowd gathered, police and an ambulance arrived.

The baby was born in the ambulance but died in a miscarriage.

It was not known what charges the taxi driver would face.

(Shanghai Daily October 3, 2005)