A Senator trapped in a taxi with a bomb ticking away, her brother to the rescue with a crowbar and then the taxi exploding moments after she escapes.

It sounded too good to be true ? and it was.

Readers of yesterday?s were treated to a front page news story that appeared to have come straight from James Bond.

And in the post 9/11 world the alleged villain of the piece, the taxi driver, was also conveniently described as being an Arab.has learnedthe story was a classic urban myth perpetuated by an e-mail, but it also had its basis in an amazing escape for Sen. Carol Bassett that needed no embellishment.

The incident happened in Boston last Sunday where Sen. Bassett was visiting her father in hospital. She and her brother Allan Simons were riding in a taxi when they stopped at a shopping mall so that Mr. Simons could grab some food.

While her brother went to the food hall, Sen. Bassett stayed in the taxi with the driver and soon noticed some smoke coming from the right-hand side of the car.

?Then the smoke turned black and there were flames,? said Sen. Bassett, but as she and the driver ? who was African and not Arab ? tried to get out of the taxi they found the doors were locked.

?It may have been an electrical fault caused by the fire that prevented the doors opening,? said the Senator. ?I was incredulous, I thought ?I can?t die like this?.

?My brother came down from the mall and he and another man tried to get the doors of the taxi open. They kept trying to pull the doors open and I was screaming at them to kick in the windows.?

Sen. Bassett tried to kick the windows from the inside, while her brother and another man kicked from the outside. At about the fifth attempt the man on the sidewalk managed to kick through the window and Mr. Simons pulled his sister through the taxi window to safety.

?The driver climbed onto the back seat and he was pulled out by the other man. Then the taxi just kept burning and went up in flames,? said Sen. Bassett, who suffered cuts and bruises in the incident.

?The guy on the sidewalk was an angel. I?m a Christian and I give all praise and homage to God. I believe that a guardian angel was with me that day.?

Sen. Bassett said she had seen the e-mail that had embellished the story with a ticking bomb, Arab driver, a rental car sub-plot that led to the senator being alone in the taxi and her brother getting a crowbar from a passing motorist to force open the taxi door before the bomb exploded.

?When I read the e-mail I cracked up. I do not know who made it up. But I am grateful that people have shown concern for me,? said Sen. Bassett.