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

At the age of nineteenth year, my regular journey to work was on an express bus. It was perpetually jammed and invariably became completely full once I got on.

On one specific day, I was feeling quite nauseous as the bus rocked around the bends. I continuously reassured myself to persevere just a little longer before the bus arrived at my stop, so I could then sprint quickly for the nearest public restroom to vomit.

We were coming down the avenue close to my stop and I realised I was unable to make it. All of a sudden, it was like a curtain fell over me. Everything just went white and really quiet; as if someone turned off the audio. I said to myself, “I will lose consciousness”.

Luckily I was close to the driver on the bus, so I managed a few steps forward and requested that the driver to stop, informing him that I was about to get ill. He promptly opened the doors and I stumbled out out onto the street.

I was resolved to not get sick in view of a busy multi-lane road, so I forced myself up and began attempting to walk to the park across the road, thinking I could I could at least find some privacy near some foliage to vomit. Yet I must have blacked out. I sensed my body but I couldn’t walk or see properly, leading me to start crawling towards the grassy area.

“Are you okay, dear?”

Right then, someone picked me up. I sensed a strong arm supporting me and heard a man say, “You right, love?” I explained to this kind passerby that I required to get to a bathroom. Thus, he practically carried me down into an adjacent building and placed me into the female bathroom. He asked me if I wanted him to wait for me but I said no.

A few minutes later, I had recovered enough to sit down and from outside the door came him inquire, “Do you need anything, love? Can I get you something?” I was incapable to get up just then but did manage to thank him and after a few more minutes was able to move my feet. I made my way home passing the next few days healing from what was later diagnosed as a severe stomach virus.

I did not see the stranger’s face – only his legs and the big steelwork tools container he had with him – but he helped me, when I was at my most vulnerable.

Often this world has a way of making you defensive, aggressive and competitive. His act was the type of kindness that undoes that emotional callousness. He was proof that our default setting is to be kind, a quality I adore in other people.