I Was So Ill I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Practically Supported Me to a Bathroom.

At the age of nineteenth year, my morning travel meant taking an express bus. It was perpetually crowded and would always be without any seats once I got on.

On one specific day, I was feeling terribly ill as the bus rocked around the bends. I repeatedly told myself to endure another few kilometres before the bus got to where I needed to get off, at which point I could sprint quickly toward the most convenient washroom to be sick.

The bus was approaching the road leading to my stop and it dawned on me I was unable to make it. In an instant, it was like a fog descended upon me. My vision turned blank and silent; as if someone cut the sound. My mind raced, “I will lose consciousness”.

Luckily I was near the front on the bus, so I managed several steps to ask the driver and requested that the driver to stop, explaining to him I needed to vomit. He opened the bus doors and I stumbled out onto the sidewalk.

My intention was to not get sick in view of a busy multi-lane road, so I forced myself up and endeavored to stumble to the park across the road, thinking I could I could at least discreetly hide near some foliage to throw up. Yet I must have lost consciousness. I sensed my physical self, yet walking was impossible or see clearly, so I began inching my way to the park.

“You right, love?”

In that instant, I got scooped up. I felt an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I told this mysterious stranger that I needed to get to a bathroom. Therefore, he almost supported my weight down into a close-by structure and put me inside the women’s restroom. He wanted to know whether I required him to remain with me but I refused.

Not long after, I regained my composure enough to sit on the toilet and from outside the door came his voice asking, “Are you feeling better, dear? Do you need anything?” I wasn’t able to rise just then but I was able to thank him and following a brief period recovered the use of my limbs. I made my way home passing the following days healing from what turned out to be a severe stomach virus.

I did not see the stranger’s face – merely his legs and the big steelwork tools container he was carrying – but he saved me, when I was completely helpless.

Often this world can make you defensive, aggressive and competitive. What he did was the kind of action that melts away that emotional callousness. He demonstrated that our default setting is to be kind, a quality I adore in other people.