Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk As a Stranger Essentially Lifted Me to a Bathroom.

At the age of my late teens, my morning travel meant taking an packed public transport. It was perpetually full and would always be standing room only once I boarded.

During a certain commute, I began feeling terribly ill while the vehicle lurched around the bends. I continuously reassured myself to hold on for a few more stops before the bus arrived at my destination, and then I could rush hurriedly toward the most convenient public restroom to throw up.

We were coming down the avenue close to the stop when I understood I was unable to hold on. Suddenly, it was like a veil came over me. Everything just went blank and silent; like someone had muted everything. I thought, “I will lose consciousness”.

Luckily I was near the front of the bus, so I took a couple of steps to ask the driver and told the operator to stop, informing him that I was about to vomit. He promptly opened the doors and I stumbled out on to the pavement.

I was determined to avoid being sick in front of multiple lanes of cars, so I gathered myself and began attempting to make my way toward the green space on the other side, thinking I could I’d at least be able to discreetly hide among some shrubs to be sick. Yet I must have blacked out. I could feel my limbs, but I was unable to walk or see properly, so I started dragging myself toward the park.

“You right, love?”

At that moment, I got scooped up. There was an arm around my waist and a man’s voice asked, “Everything alright, love?” I told this mysterious stranger that I had to to be sick. Therefore, he almost supported my weight into a nearby building and placed me in the ladies’ toilets. He wanted to know whether I required him to wait for me but I declined.

A few minutes later, I regained my composure enough to sit on the restroom floor and from the other side of the stall I heard his voice asking, “Do you need anything, love? Can I get you something?” I was incapable to stand up right away but I was able to thank him and shortly thereafter recovered the use of my legs. I got myself home passing the following days recovering from what turned out to be a nasty tummy bug.

I never glimpsed the stranger’s face – merely his legs and the big container for tools he had with him – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was at my most vulnerable.

Many times, life tends to make people guarded, hostile, and combative. What he did was the kind of action that reverses that hardening of the heart. He demonstrated that our default setting is towards kindness, a quality I adore about my fellow humans.