Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Virtually Carried Me to the Toilets.
Back when I was nineteenth year, my daily commute meant taking an express bus. It remained full and was consistently standing room only when I got on.
During a certain commute, I began feeling terribly ill when the coach lurched around the bends. I kept telling myself to endure for a few more stops until the bus arrived at where I needed to get off, and then I could rush hurriedly toward the most convenient public restroom to throw up.
As we neared the road leading to my stop and I realised I wasn’t going to last. Suddenly, it was like a veil came over me. Everything just went blank and silent; like someone had turned off the audio. My mind raced, “I am about to pass out”.
Fortunately, I stood close to the driver of the bus, so I managed several steps forward and requested that the driver to open the doors, informing him I was going to be sick. He opened the entrance and I weakly exited out onto the street.
I was determined to avoid being sick in view of six lanes of traffic, so I gathered myself and began attempting to walk toward the green space across the road, where I thought I’d at least be able to find some privacy among some shrubs to throw up. Yet I apparently fainted. I sensed my limbs, but I was unable to walk or see clearly, so I began dragging myself toward the grassy area.
“Everything alright, love?”
In that instant, I was lifted up. I sensed a strong arm supporting me and heard a man say, “Everything alright, love?” I managed to tell the kind passerby that I needed to get to a bathroom. So he virtually supported my weight into a close-by structure and put me into the female bathroom. He wanted to know if I needed him to wait for me but I refused.
After a short while, I felt better to the point of sitting on the toilet and from the other side of the door I heard him inquire, “Do you need anything, love? Is there anything you require?” I wasn’t able to stand up just then but I did succeed to express my gratitude and shortly thereafter regained the function of my legs. I made my way home and spent the following days healing from what turned out to be a horrible case of gastroenteritis.
I never saw the stranger’s face – just his lower half and the big metal toolbox he had with him – but he helped me, at a moment I was at my most vulnerable.
Often this world tends to make people guarded, hostile, and combative. What he did was the kind of action that reverses that emotional callousness. He demonstrated that humanity’s innate tendency is towards kindness, a quality I adore in other people.
