Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Virtually Carried Me to the Toilets.

Back when I was my late teens, my morning travel involved an express bus. It was perpetually full and was consistently completely full once I got on.

During a certain commute, I was feeling terribly ill as the bus lurched around the bends. I repeatedly told myself to endure for a few more stops until the bus got to where I needed to get off, and then I could make a mad dash toward the most convenient washroom to be sick.

The bus was approaching the street towards my stop and I understood I would not be to last. All of a sudden, it seemed a veil came over me. The world became blank and silent; similar to when one muted everything. My mind raced, “I’m going to faint”.

Luckily I was toward the front of the bus, so I managed a few steps forward and asked the driver to pull over, explaining to him I was going to vomit. He promptly opened the bus doors and I hurriedly stepped onto the sidewalk.

I was resolved to not get sick before multiple lanes of cars, so I forced myself up and began attempting to make my way toward the green space across the road, where I thought it would allow me to discreetly hide near some foliage to vomit. However I likely blacked out. I was aware of my body but I couldn’t walk or see clearly, so I began crawling towards the grassy area.

“You right, love?”

In that instant, someone picked me up. There was someone holding me and a stranger inquired, “You right, love?” I explained to this unknown man that I had to to get to a bathroom. Thus, he practically supported my weight into a nearby building and put me into the female bathroom. He asked me whether I required him to remain with me but I refused.

After a short while, I had recovered to the point of sitting on the toilet when from beyond the door I heard him inquire, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I could not to rise at that moment but did manage to express my gratitude and following a brief period regained the function of my legs. I returned home and then spent several days healing from what was later diagnosed as a severe stomach virus.

I never glimpsed the stranger’s face – just his lower half and a large container for tools he was carrying – but he saved me, at a moment I was in my weakest state.

Frequently, society tends to make people self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His act was the type of kindness that melts away that hardening of the heart. He served as evidence that humanity’s innate tendency is to be kind, something I love in other people.