Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk When a Man Essentially Lifted Me to a Restroom.

During my nineteenth year, my regular journey to work was on an express bus. It remained jammed and was consistently completely full by the time I boarded.

One particular morning, I started experiencing incredibly sick as the bus lurched around the bends. I kept telling myself to hold on just a little longer before the bus got to my destination, at which point I could make a mad dash to the closest public restroom to vomit.

As we neared the street towards my stop and I understood I was unable to hold on. All of a sudden, it was like a curtain fell over me. Everything just went blank and silent; similar to when one turned off the audio. I said to myself, “I am about to pass out”.

Thankfully, I was positioned near the front inside the vehicle, allowing me to take a couple of steps forward and asked the driver to pull over, informing him I was going to vomit. The driver opened the bus doors and I weakly exited onto the sidewalk.

My intention was to avoid being sick in view of six lanes of traffic, so I gathered myself and started trying to stumble toward the green space across the road, thinking I could it would allow me to find some privacy near some foliage to vomit. But then I apparently lost consciousness. I sensed my body but I couldn’t walk or see properly, so I started dragging myself toward the grassy area.

“You right, love?”

Right then, I was lifted up. There was someone holding me and heard a man say, “You right, love?” I managed to tell the mysterious stranger that I had to to get to a bathroom. So he virtually carried me down into a nearby building and put me in the ladies’ toilets. He wanted to know if I needed him to wait for me but I said no.

Not long after, I had recovered enough to sit on the restroom floor and from the other side of the door came his voice asking, “Are you feeling better, dear? Do you need anything?” I could not to get up right away but did manage to thank him and after a few more minutes regained the function of my limbs. I returned home and spent the following days recovering from what was later diagnosed as a horrible case of gastroenteritis.

I never saw the stranger’s face – merely his legs along with a sizable metal toolbox he had with him – but he helped me, at a moment I was completely helpless.

Often this world has a way of making you defensive, aggressive and competitive. His act was the type of kindness that reverses that protective shell. He served as evidence that people’s natural inclination is towards kindness, a quality I adore in other people.