Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk As a Stranger Essentially Lifted Me to the Toilets.

During my nineteenth year, my morning travel was on an crowded coach. The vehicle was always crowded and was consistently standing room only by the time I stepped aboard.

One particular morning, I was feeling quite nauseous when the coach rocked around the bends. I continuously reassured myself to endure another few kilometres before the bus arrived at my stop, and then I could make a mad dash for the nearest washroom to throw up.

As we neared the avenue close to my stop and it dawned on me I was unable to last. In an instant, 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’m going to faint”.

Luckily I was near the front of the bus, allowing me to take a couple of steps to ask the driver and requested that the driver to stop, explaining to him I was going to vomit. The driver opened the bus doors and I stumbled out onto the sidewalk.

I was determined not to vomit in front of multiple lanes of cars, so I picked myself up and endeavored to stumble across to the park opposite the street, where I believed it would allow me to discreetly hide behind a bush to be sick. Yet I apparently fainted. I could feel my limbs, but I couldn’t walk or see properly, so I started dragging myself toward my intended destination.

“Are you okay, dear?”

In that instant, I got scooped up. I felt an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I managed to tell the unknown man that I had to to vomit. Thus, he practically helped me walk over to an adjacent building and put me in the ladies’ toilets. He inquired whether I required him to wait for me but I said no.

Not long after, I had recovered to the point of sitting down when from beyond the door I heard him ask, “Are you OK, love? Can I get you something?” I could not to rise right away but I was able to thank him and after a few more minutes was able to move my limbs. I made my way home and spent the next few days healing from what was later diagnosed as a horrible case of gastroenteritis.

I did not see that man’s face – only his legs along with a sizable container for tools he had with him – but he saved me, during a time 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 protective shell. He was proof that our default setting is to be kind, a quality I adore in other people.