Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk When a Man Virtually Carried Me to a Bathroom.
Back when I was my late teens, my daily commute meant taking an packed public transport. It remained jammed and was consistently standing room only once I stepped aboard.
On one specific day, I began feeling terribly ill while the vehicle rocked around every turn. I kept telling myself to hold on for a few more stops so the bus could arrived at where I needed to get off, and then I could sprint quickly for the nearest washroom to throw up.
As we neared the road leading to my stop and I understood I would not be to last. Suddenly, it felt as if a curtain fell over me. Everything just went blank and silent; like someone had muted everything. My mind raced, “I am about to pass out”.
Luckily I was toward the front on the bus, so I managed a couple of steps to ask the driver and asked the driver to open the doors, explaining to him I needed to get ill. The driver opened the bus doors and I hurriedly stepped out onto the street.
My intention was to avoid being sick in front of multiple lanes of cars, so I picked myself up and started trying to walk to the park opposite the street, thinking I could I’d at least be able to discreetly hide near some foliage to vomit. But then I apparently fainted. I could feel my body but I was unable to walk or see properly, leading me to start inching my way to the grassy area.
“You right, love?”
In that instant, someone picked me up. I felt someone holding me and a stranger inquired, “Everything alright, love?” I told this mysterious stranger that I needed to be sick. Therefore, he almost helped me walk into an adjacent building and placed me inside the women’s restroom. He asked me whether I required him to remain with me but I refused.
After a short while, I had recovered enough to sit on the toilet when from beyond the door came him ask, “Do you need anything, love? Can I get you something?” I could not to get up right away but I was able to say thank you and following a brief period recovered the use of my feet. I made my way home and spent the following days healing from which was a severe stomach virus.
I never glimpsed the stranger’s face – merely his legs and the big metal toolbox he held – yet he rescued me, when I was at my most vulnerable.
Frequently, society has a way of making you guarded, hostile, and combative. His act was the type of kindness that undoes that protective shell. He was proof that people’s natural inclination is to be kind, a trait I cherish in other people.
