I Was So Ill I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Virtually Carried Me to a Bathroom.

Back when I was my late teens, my morning travel was on an packed public transport. It was perpetually crowded and invariably became completely full once I stepped aboard.

During a certain commute, I began feeling terribly ill as the bus lurched around each corner. I continuously reassured myself to persevere for a few more stops so the bus could reached where I needed to get off, at which point I could rush hurriedly toward the most convenient public restroom to vomit.

As we neared the road leading to my stop and I understood I was unable to last. All of a sudden, it felt as if a veil came over me. The world became white and really quiet; like someone had cut the sound. I said to myself, “I’m going to faint”.

Luckily I was close to the driver on the bus, so I took a couple of steps forward and told the operator to stop, informing him I was going to get ill. He promptly opened the entrance and I stumbled out out onto the street.

My intention was to not get sick before six lanes of traffic, so I gathered myself and endeavored to walk across to the park on the other side, thinking I could it would allow me to find some privacy near some foliage to be sick. But then I must have lost consciousness. I sensed my body but I was unable to walk or see properly, so I began crawling towards my intended destination.

“Everything alright, love?”

In that instant, I was lifted up. I sensed an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I told this unknown man that I required to get to a bathroom. So he virtually supported my weight into a nearby building and placed me inside the women’s restroom. He inquired whether I required him to wait for me but I refused.

A few minutes later, I had recovered to the point of sitting on the restroom floor when from beyond the door came his voice asking, “Are you OK, love? Can I get you something?” I was incapable to rise at that moment but I did succeed to express my gratitude and shortly thereafter recovered the use of my feet. I made my way home passing several days getting over which was a nasty tummy bug.

I never glimpsed that man’s face – only his legs and the big metal toolbox he was carrying – but he saved me, at a moment I was in my weakest state.

Often this world tends to make people guarded, hostile, and combative. His was the sort of gesture that undoes that hardening of the heart. He was proof that our default setting leans toward compassion, something I love about humanity.