I Was So Ill Walking Was Impossible As a Stranger Practically Supported Me to a Bathroom.

At the age of my late teens, my regular journey to work was on an packed public transport. It was perpetually jammed and invariably became without any seats once I stepped aboard.

On one specific day, I was feeling terribly ill as the bus lurched around the bends. I repeatedly told myself to hold on just a little longer before the bus reached where I needed to get off, and then I could rush hurriedly for the nearest public restroom to throw up.

The bus was approaching the street towards the destination as I realised I wasn’t going to hold on. All of a sudden, it was like a fog descended upon me. Everything just went hazy and muffled; as if someone turned off the audio. I thought, “I’m going to faint”.

Thankfully, I was positioned near the front of the bus, so I managed several steps toward the driver and asked the driver to pull over, informing him I needed to get ill. The driver opened the entrance and I stumbled out out onto the street.

I was resolved to not get sick in view of six lanes of traffic, so I gathered myself and started trying to walk across to the park across the road, thinking I could it would allow me to find some privacy among some shrubs to throw up. But then I apparently blacked out. I could feel my physical self, yet I couldn’t walk and my vision was blurry, so I began crawling towards the park.

“You right, love?”

At that moment, I got scooped up. I felt an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I explained to this unknown man that I needed to vomit. Thus, he practically carried me down into a close-by structure and guided me inside the women’s restroom. He inquired if I needed him to stay with me but I declined.

After a short while, I had recovered enough to sit on the toilet and from outside the door I heard him ask, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I was incapable to get up right away but I did succeed to say thank you and shortly thereafter regained the function of my legs. I returned home and then spent several days healing from what was later diagnosed as a severe stomach virus.

I never glimpsed the stranger’s face – merely his legs and the big metal toolbox he was carrying – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was at my most vulnerable.

Often this world can make you self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His act was the type of kindness that reverses that protective shell. He served as evidence that humanity’s innate tendency is to be kind, something I love about my fellow humans.