Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk As a Stranger Practically Supported Me to the Toilets.

At the age of nineteenth year, my morning travel involved an express bus. It was perpetually jammed and invariably became without any seats once I stepped aboard.

On one specific day, I began feeling incredibly sick when the coach rocked around the bends. I kept telling myself to hold on just a little longer until the bus arrived at where I needed to get off, at which point I could make a mad dash to the closest public toilet to vomit.

As we neared the road leading to the stop when I understood I would not be to hold on. In an instant, it was like a fog descended upon me. My vision turned blank and silent; similar to when one muted everything. My mind raced, “I am about to pass out”.

Thankfully, I was positioned toward the front inside the vehicle, so I took a few steps forward and told the operator to open the doors, explaining to him I needed to vomit. The driver opened the doors and I hurriedly stepped on to the pavement.

My intention was to not get sick in front of a busy multi-lane road, so I picked myself up and began attempting to walk to the park opposite the street, where I thought I could at least find some privacy near some foliage to vomit. However I must have lost consciousness. I was aware of my physical self, yet I couldn’t walk or see clearly, so I began inching my way to my intended destination.

“Are you okay, dear?”

In that instant, I was lifted up. I felt an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “You right, love?” I managed to tell the mysterious stranger that I needed to get to a bathroom. Thus, he practically supported my weight down into an adjacent building and put me in the ladies’ toilets. He asked me whether I required him to remain with me but I declined.

Not long after, I regained my composure sufficiently to sit on the toilet and from outside the stall I heard him ask, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I wasn’t able to get up right away but I was able to thank him and shortly thereafter recovered the use of my legs. I got myself home and spent several days healing from what was later diagnosed as a severe stomach virus.

I never glimpsed that man’s face – only his legs and the big container for tools he was carrying – yet he rescued 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 reverses that hardening of the heart. He served as evidence that people’s natural inclination leans toward compassion, a trait I cherish about humanity.