In Such Poor Health I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Practically Supported Me to a Bathroom.

During my nineteenth year, my morning travel was on an express bus. It was perpetually jammed and invariably became completely full by the time I boarded.

On one specific day, I started experiencing quite nauseous while the vehicle rocked around every turn. I repeatedly told myself to hold on for a few more stops so the bus could reached where I needed to get off, so I could then make a mad dash for the nearest washroom to be sick.

We were coming down the street towards my stop and it dawned on me I wasn’t going to make it. In an instant, it seemed a veil came over me. The world became hazy and muffled; as if someone cut the sound. I said to myself, “I am about to pass out”.

Luckily I was close to the driver inside the vehicle, so I managed several steps to ask the driver and requested that the driver to stop, telling him I needed to vomit. The driver opened the bus doors and I hurriedly stepped out onto the street.

I was resolved to avoid being sick before a busy multi-lane road, so I gathered myself and began attempting to make my way toward the green space across the road, where I believed it would allow me to discreetly hide among some shrubs to vomit. Yet I apparently lost consciousness. I sensed my body but walking was impossible or see clearly, leading me to start dragging myself toward my intended destination.

“Are you okay, dear?”

At that moment, someone picked me up. I felt a strong arm supporting me and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I managed to tell the unknown man that I needed to get to a bathroom. So he virtually helped me walk over to a nearby building and placed me in the ladies’ toilets. He inquired whether I required him to wait for me but I declined.

Not long after, I regained my composure to the point of sitting on the toilet and from the other side of the stall I heard his voice asking, “Do you need anything, love? Do you need anything?” I wasn’t able to stand up at that moment but I did succeed to say thank you and shortly thereafter recovered the use of my limbs. I got myself home and then spent the following days healing from what was later diagnosed as a horrible case of gastroenteritis.

I did not see the stranger’s face – just his lower half along with a sizable metal toolbox he held – but he saved me, when I was in my weakest state.

Often this world can make you self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. What he did was the kind of action that melts away that hardening of the heart. He was proof that our default setting leans toward compassion, a quality I adore about humanity.