I Was So Ill I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Essentially Lifted Me to a Restroom.

At the age of 19 years old, my daily commute was on an crowded coach. It was perpetually jammed and invariably became completely full by the time I stepped aboard.

On one specific day, I began feeling terribly ill while the vehicle swayed around every turn. I repeatedly told myself to hold on just a little longer before the bus arrived at my stop, so I could then sprint quickly toward the most convenient public toilet to vomit.

The bus was approaching the avenue close to my stop and I realised I was unable to make it. All of a sudden, it felt as if a fog descended upon me. Everything just went hazy and muffled; like someone had cut the sound. I thought, “I am about to pass out”.

Fortunately, I stood toward the front on the bus, so I managed a few steps to ask the driver and asked the driver to open the doors, explaining to him that I was about to get ill. The driver opened the doors and I stumbled out on to the pavement.

My intention was to avoid being sick before a busy multi-lane road, so I gathered myself and started trying to make my way toward the green space on the other side, where I believed it would allow me to find some privacy behind a bush to vomit. Yet I apparently blacked out. I could feel my physical self, yet walking was impossible or see properly, leading me to start inching my way to my intended destination.

“You right, love?”

Right then, I was lifted up. I felt an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I managed to tell the mysterious stranger that I required to vomit. Thus, he practically carried me over to a close-by structure and placed me in the ladies’ toilets. He wanted to know whether I required him to stay with me but I refused.

After a short while, I had recovered to the point of sitting on the restroom floor when from beyond the door I heard his voice asking, “Are you OK, love? Can I get you something?” I wasn’t able to rise at that moment but did manage to thank him and following a brief period regained the function of my limbs. I returned home and then spent the next few days healing from what was later diagnosed as a nasty tummy bug.

I never glimpsed the stranger’s face – just his lower half and the big steelwork tools container he had with him – but he helped me, at a moment I was in my weakest state.

Often this world can make you self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His act was the type of kindness that reverses that protective shell. He demonstrated that humanity’s innate tendency is to be kind, something I love about humanity.