I Was So Ill I Couldn’t Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Virtually Carried Me to a Restroom.

Back when I was 19 years old, my morning travel involved an crowded coach. It remained jammed and was consistently completely full once I boarded.

One particular morning, I started experiencing terribly ill when the coach rocked around every turn. I repeatedly told myself to hold on another few kilometres until the bus got to my stop, at which point I could make a mad dash toward the most convenient public toilet to throw up.

The bus was approaching the street towards the stop when it dawned on me I wasn’t going to hold on. Suddenly, it felt as if a veil came over me. Everything just went blank and silent; like someone had cut the sound. I said to myself, “I’m going to faint”.

Luckily I was close to the driver on the bus, so I took a few steps toward the driver and told the operator to open the doors, explaining to him I was going to vomit. He opened the doors and I stumbled out out onto the street.

My intention was not to vomit before six lanes of traffic, so I picked myself up and endeavored to make my way to the park across the road, where I thought it would allow me to find some privacy among some shrubs to throw up. But then I apparently lost consciousness. I was aware of my physical self, yet walking was impossible or see clearly, so I began crawling towards my intended destination.

“Are you okay, dear?”

At that moment, someone picked me up. I felt an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Everything alright, love?” I managed to tell the mysterious stranger that I needed to be sick. Thus, he practically supported my weight into an adjacent building and placed me inside the women’s restroom. He inquired whether I required him to remain with me but I declined.

A few minutes later, I felt better sufficiently to sit on the restroom floor when from beyond the door came him inquire, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I wasn’t able to stand up just then but I was able to say thank you and after a few more minutes was able to move my limbs. I made my way home and spent the next few days recovering from which was a severe stomach virus.

I never saw the stranger’s face – merely his legs along with a sizable steelwork tools container he was carrying – but he helped me, during a time when 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 demonstrated that our default setting leans toward compassion, something I love about humanity.