I Was So Ill I Couldn’t Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Practically Supported Me to the Toilets.

At the age of my late teens, my morning travel was on an crowded coach. It remained crowded and was consistently standing room only by the time I got on.

On one specific day, I started experiencing quite nauseous when the coach rocked around the bends. I continuously reassured myself to endure for a few more stops before the bus arrived at my stop, so I could then make a mad dash for the nearest public toilet to vomit.

We were coming down the street towards the stop when I understood I would not be to last. In an instant, it felt as if a fog descended upon me. The world became blank and silent; as if someone turned off the audio. I said to myself, “I am about to pass out”.

Thankfully, I was positioned toward the front of the bus, so I managed a few steps to ask the driver and requested that the driver to pull over, informing him I was going to vomit. The driver opened the bus doors and I hurriedly stepped onto the sidewalk.

I was determined not to vomit in view of six lanes of traffic, so I forced myself up and began attempting to walk to the park on the other side, thinking I could I’d at least be able to find some privacy among some shrubs to be sick. However I apparently blacked out. I could feel my body but I couldn’t walk or see properly, so I started dragging myself toward my intended destination.

“You right, love?”

Right then, I got scooped up. I felt someone holding me and a man’s voice asked, “You right, love?” I told this kind passerby that I required to get to a bathroom. Thus, he practically supported my weight into a close-by structure and guided me into the female bathroom. He asked me whether I required him to remain with me but I declined.

Not long after, I had recovered enough to sit on the restroom floor when from beyond the door I heard him ask, “Do you need anything, love? Can I get you something?” I could not to get up at that moment but I did succeed to say thank you and following a brief period was able to move 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 the stranger’s face – merely his legs and the big container for tools he was carrying – yet he rescued me, when I was completely helpless.

Often this world tends to make people guarded, hostile, and combative. His was the sort of gesture that melts away that emotional callousness. He served as evidence that people’s natural inclination is to be kind, a quality I adore about my fellow humans.