Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk As a Stranger Virtually Carried Me to a Restroom.

Back when I was my late teens, my regular journey to work meant taking an packed public transport. It remained jammed and would always be without any seats when I got on.

One particular morning, I started experiencing quite nauseous when the coach lurched around each corner. I repeatedly told myself to hold on for a few more stops before the bus reached where I needed to get off, at which point I could make a mad dash toward the most convenient public restroom to throw up.

The bus was approaching the avenue close to the destination as I understood I would not be to make it. In an instant, it seemed a veil came over me. The world became hazy and muffled; similar to when one muted everything. I said to myself, “I will lose consciousness”.

Luckily I was near the front inside the vehicle, so I took a couple of steps forward and asked the driver to pull over, informing him I needed to get ill. He opened the bus doors and I weakly exited on to the pavement.

I was determined not to vomit in view of six lanes of traffic, so I gathered myself and started trying to stumble across to the park across the road, thinking I could it would allow me to secretly conceal myself behind a bush to vomit. Yet I must have lost consciousness. I sensed my body but walking was impossible or see properly, so I began inching my way to the park.

“You right, love?”

In that instant, someone picked me up. I felt someone holding me and heard a man say, “Everything alright, love?” I explained to this unknown man that I had to to be sick. So he virtually supported my weight over to a close-by structure and placed me inside the women’s restroom. He asked me whether I required him to stay with me but I refused.

A few minutes later, I regained my composure sufficiently to sit on the restroom floor and from the other side of the stall I heard him inquire, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I could not to get up at that moment but I was able to say thank you and following a brief period recovered the use of my feet. I got myself home and spent several days getting over what was later diagnosed as a severe stomach virus.

I never saw that man’s face – just his lower half along with a sizable steelwork tools container he was carrying – but he helped me, during a time when I was completely helpless.

Often this world can make you defensive, aggressive and competitive. His was the sort of gesture that undoes that protective shell. He demonstrated that humanity’s innate tendency is towards kindness, something I love about my fellow humans.