This is a story about time. And the kindness of strangers.

It is the story of two women who flew across great distances to watch a very important swim race at the Pan Am Games, and got lost along the way.

And it's the story of two men who came to the rescue, and made sure they got there on time.

Swimmers race against the clock. Their fans are not supposed to.

Phyllis Medina flew 4,000 from Mexico to her granddaughter, Esther Gonzalez, swim at the Pan Am Games. (Supplied) When Phyllis Medina and Margarita Gonzalez stepped onto the No. 51 GO Transit bus near the Richmond Hill Centre in Toronto last Wednesday, they thought they had plenty of time. The CIBC Pan Am Aquatics Centre was just a 40-minute bus ride away.

Medina had flown 4,000 kilometres from Mexico to see the race.

Her daughter, Gonzalez, had flown in from Edmonton to meet her.

The women's 200-metre breaststroke race was set to go at 10:33 a.m. that morning

Esther Gonzalez — daughter, granddaughter — was swimming for Mexico.

It was only 8:25 a.m. So, everything should have been fine.

But instead of an eastbound bus, they got on a westbound by mistake.

'How did you get here?'

Soon, they found themselves at York University, the end of the bus route. Nowhere near their destination.

"I didn't know how bad we were," Margarita Gonzalez said from her home in Edmonton, a few days after the race. "I thought we just needed to cross the street and walk a little."

Margarita Gonzalez and her daughter, Esther, back when the Pan Am Games were just a distant dream. (Supplied) But friends had told them the aquatic centre was 200 metres from the bus stop. Easy to spot.

When they didn't see it, they got scared. Temporarily lost in a strange city of 2.8 million people, they asked the bus driver, who eventually led them to his supervisor.

Time ticked by.

Enter Greg Duyn, a superintendent with Go Transit. He could see the two women were starting to panic.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

They explained.

"You got on the wrong bus," he said.

Duyn's first instinct was to order up a special bus.

Gonzalez asked: "A full bus for two people?"

He told her, "Yes, because if not, you won't make it."

So, they waited for the special bus. Time ticked by.

Then Tim Mugford pulled up in a Toronto Transit van.

"We tried to get them a bus," he said, "but we didn't have one anywhere in the vicinity that would get them there on time."

The two men then decided there was only one thing left to do.

"We put them in the van and promised that we'd get them there," Mugford said.

Six minutes to spare

He drove while beside him, Duyn got on his iPhone and frantically searched for the route that would best avoid construction and traffic.

They made it, with six whole minutes to spare. Enough time to pose for a quick photo before the two women dashed inside.

Phyllis Medina and Margarita Gonzalez got their photo taken with the two Toronto transit employees who saved the day for them. (Supplied) "They were very kind," Medina said. "They made us really feel … that they were doing all they could to help us. And we're very grateful."

The Gonzalez family moved to Edmonton in 2011. Margarita's husband, Guillermo, got a job as a diamond specialist. One reason they chose the city was because they were impressed by the swimming pools and training facilities..

Esther Gonzalez finished second in her heat that morning. She took 3.5 seconds off her best time.

And her mother and grandmother were there to watch.

"It's a great feeling," Duyn said. "We're mainly just happy that it all worked out for them."