Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk As a Stranger Practically Supported Me to a Restroom.

During my my late teens, my daily commute was on an crowded coach. It was perpetually jammed and invariably became standing room only once I boarded.

On one specific day, I started experiencing terribly ill while the vehicle rocked around every turn. I continuously reassured myself to endure another few kilometres before the bus reached my stop, and then I could make a mad dash for the nearest public restroom to vomit.

We were coming down the avenue close to my stop and I understood I would not be to make it. Suddenly, it seemed a fog descended upon me. My vision turned white and really quiet; as if someone muted everything. My mind raced, “I’m going to faint”.

Thankfully, I was positioned near the front inside the vehicle, so I took a couple of steps toward the driver and requested that the driver to stop, informing him that I was about to vomit. He promptly opened the bus doors and I stumbled out onto the sidewalk.

My intention was to avoid being sick in front of six lanes of traffic, so I forced myself up and began attempting to stumble to the park across the road, where I believed I could at least find some privacy near some foliage to throw up. However I apparently blacked out. I could feel my limbs, but I couldn’t walk or see properly, so I started dragging myself toward my intended destination.

“You right, love?”

In that instant, someone picked me up. There was an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I managed to tell the mysterious stranger that I had to to get to a bathroom. So he virtually carried me over to an adjacent building and placed me into the female bathroom. He asked me whether I required him to stay with me but I refused.

A few minutes later, I had recovered enough to sit down when from beyond the door I heard his voice asking, “Are you OK, love? Can I get you something?” I wasn’t able to rise at that moment but I did succeed to express my gratitude and shortly thereafter recovered the use of my feet. I got myself home passing the next few days getting over which was a severe stomach virus.

I never glimpsed that man’s face – just his lower half and the big container for tools he held – but he saved me, at a moment I was at my most vulnerable.

Often this world has a way of making you guarded, hostile, and combative. What he did was the kind of action that undoes that emotional callousness. He was proof that our default setting is to be kind, a trait I cherish in other people.