I Was So Ill I Couldn’t Walk As a Stranger Virtually Carried Me to a Bathroom.

At the age of 19 years old, my morning travel meant taking an crowded coach. The vehicle was always crowded and was consistently standing room only by the time I boarded.

On one specific day, I began feeling quite nauseous when the coach rocked around the bends. I kept telling myself to hold on another few kilometres before the bus arrived at my destination, so I could then sprint quickly to the closest public toilet to be sick.

We were coming down the street towards the destination as I realised I wasn’t going to last. Suddenly, it felt as if a curtain fell over me. My vision turned blank and silent; like someone had cut the sound. I thought, “I am about to pass out”.

Thankfully, I was positioned toward the front of the bus, so I managed a couple of steps forward and asked the driver to open the doors, telling him I was going to get ill. He promptly opened the entrance and I weakly exited on to the pavement.

I was determined not to vomit in front of a busy multi-lane road, so I picked myself up and started trying to make my way across to the park opposite the street, where I believed I’d at least be able to secretly conceal myself among some shrubs to throw up. Yet I likely lost consciousness. I could feel my body but I couldn’t walk or see clearly, leading me to start dragging myself toward the grassy area.

“Are you okay, dear?”

In that instant, someone picked me up. There was someone holding me and a stranger inquired, “Everything alright, love?” I explained to this mysterious stranger that I required to be sick. So he virtually supported my weight into an adjacent building and put me inside the women’s restroom. He asked me if I wanted him to wait for me but I declined.

After a short while, I felt better sufficiently to sit on the restroom floor and from outside the door came him ask, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I wasn’t able to get up just then but I did succeed to express my gratitude and shortly thereafter recovered the use of my feet. I made my way home and spent the next few days recovering from what turned out to be a horrible case of gastroenteritis.

I never glimpsed that man’s face – only his legs along with a sizable container for tools he had with him – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was completely helpless.

Frequently, society tends to make people self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. What he did was the kind of action that reverses that hardening of the heart. He was proof that people’s natural inclination leans toward compassion, a trait I cherish in other people.