I Was So Ill Walking Was Impossible Until a Fellow Passenger Practically Supported Me to a Restroom.

At the age of my late teens, my regular journey to work meant taking an crowded coach. It was perpetually full and would always be standing room only when I got on.

One particular morning, I began feeling incredibly sick while the vehicle swayed around every turn. I continuously reassured myself to persevere another few kilometres so the bus could arrived at where I needed to get off, and then I could make a mad dash to the closest washroom to throw up.

We were coming down the road leading to my stop and it dawned on me I was unable to make it. In an instant, it felt as if a veil came over me. Everything just went hazy and muffled; like someone had muted everything. My mind raced, “I am about to pass out”.

Thankfully, I was positioned near the front of the bus, so I managed several steps toward the driver and told the operator to stop, explaining to him I needed to be sick. The driver opened the entrance and I stumbled out onto the sidewalk.

My intention was to avoid being sick before six lanes of traffic, so I picked myself up and began attempting to make my way across to the park across the road, where I believed I could at least find some privacy among some shrubs to throw up. But then I must have fainted. I sensed my body but walking was impossible or see properly, so I began dragging myself toward my intended destination.

“You right, love?”

In that instant, I got scooped up. There was a strong arm supporting me and a man’s voice asked, “Are you okay, dear?” I told this mysterious stranger that I required to be sick. Thus, he practically supported my weight down into an adjacent building and put me into the female bathroom. He wanted to know whether I required him to remain with me but I declined.

After a short while, I had recovered enough to sit on the restroom floor when from beyond the door I heard him ask, “Are you feeling better, dear? Do you need anything?” I wasn’t able to rise at that moment but did manage to express my gratitude and following a brief period recovered the use of my feet. I made my way home and spent the following days healing from what was later diagnosed as a horrible case of gastroenteritis.

I never saw that man’s face – merely his legs and the big container for tools he was carrying – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was in my weakest state.

Often this world can make you defensive, aggressive and competitive. What he did was the kind of action that undoes that emotional callousness. He was proof that our default setting is towards kindness, a trait I cherish about humanity.