Feeling So Sick I Couldn’t Walk As a Stranger Essentially Lifted Me to the Toilets.

During my nineteenth year, my daily commute was on an crowded coach. It remained jammed and invariably became standing room only by the time I got on.

On one specific day, I began feeling incredibly sick as the bus rocked around each corner. I continuously reassured myself to hold on for a few more stops until the bus arrived at my stop, so I could then rush hurriedly to the closest washroom to throw up.

As we neared the avenue close to the stop when I understood I wasn’t going to hold on. Suddenly, it seemed a veil came over me. The world became hazy and muffled; like someone had cut the sound. I said to myself, “I’m going to faint”.

Fortunately, I stood toward the front of the bus, so I managed several steps toward the driver and requested that the driver to stop, informing him I needed to vomit. He promptly opened the doors and I stumbled out on to the pavement.

I was resolved to avoid being sick before six lanes of traffic, so I picked myself up and started trying to make my way toward the green space on the other side, where I believed it would allow me to find some privacy among some shrubs to throw up. Yet I must have blacked out. I could feel my limbs, but I was unable to walk or see properly, so I started inching my way to the park.

“Are you okay, dear?”

In that instant, I got scooped up. I sensed a strong arm supporting me and heard a man say, “You right, love?” I managed to tell the unknown man that I required to get to a bathroom. Thus, he practically supported my weight over to a close-by structure and placed me inside the women’s restroom. He inquired if I wanted him to remain with me but I declined.

Not long after, I felt better to the point of sitting on the restroom floor and from outside the door came him ask, “Do you need anything, love? Do you need anything?” I could not to rise just then but I was able to thank him and shortly thereafter regained the function of my feet. I got myself home passing several days healing from what turned out to be a nasty tummy bug.

I never saw his features – merely his legs and the big metal toolbox he was carrying – but he helped me, at a moment I was in my weakest state.

Frequently, society tends to make people defensive, aggressive and competitive. What he did was the kind of action that undoes that protective shell. He served as evidence that our default setting is to be kind, something I love in other people.