In Such Poor Health Walking Was Impossible Until a Fellow Passenger Practically Supported Me to a Bathroom.

At the age of 19 years old, my daily commute meant taking an express bus. It was perpetually crowded and would always be standing room only by the time I boarded.

One particular morning, I began feeling incredibly sick as the bus rocked around each corner. I continuously reassured myself to endure another few kilometres before the bus arrived at where I needed to get off, at which point I could make a mad dash for the nearest public restroom to be sick.

As we neared the street towards the destination as I realised I wasn’t going to last. All of a sudden, it seemed a curtain fell over me. Everything just went blank and silent; like someone had muted everything. My mind raced, “I will lose consciousness”.

Luckily I was toward the front on the bus, so I managed a couple of steps to ask the driver and requested that the driver to pull over, explaining to him that I was about to be sick. The driver opened the doors and I stumbled out on to the pavement.

I was resolved not to vomit before a busy multi-lane road, so I picked myself up and endeavored to walk to the park opposite the street, where I believed it would allow me to discreetly hide among some shrubs to vomit. However I must have fainted. I was aware of my body but walking was impossible or see properly, so I started dragging myself toward the park.

“Everything alright, love?”

In that instant, someone picked me up. I felt someone holding me and a man’s voice asked, “You right, love?” I told this mysterious stranger that I needed to be sick. Thus, he practically supported my weight down into a close-by structure and put me into the female bathroom. He wanted to know whether I required him to wait for me but I refused.

After a short while, I regained my composure sufficiently to sit on the restroom floor and from outside the door came his voice asking, “Are you feeling better, dear? Can I get you something?” I wasn’t able to rise at that moment but did manage to say thank you and shortly thereafter recovered the use of my limbs. I got myself home and then spent the following days recovering from which was a horrible case of gastroenteritis.

I never saw the stranger’s face – just his lower half and the big container for tools he was carrying – but he saved me, during a time when I was completely helpless.

Frequently, society tends to make people guarded, hostile, and combative. His act was the type of kindness that melts away that hardening of the heart. He demonstrated that our default setting leans toward compassion, a quality I adore in other people.