In Such Poor Health I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Essentially Lifted Me to a Restroom.

Back when I was my late teens, my morning travel meant taking an crowded coach. The vehicle was always jammed and was consistently without any seats when I stepped aboard.

On one specific day, I began feeling incredibly sick while the vehicle swayed around each corner. I kept telling myself to persevere another few kilometres until the bus got to my stop, at which point I could sprint quickly for the nearest public toilet to throw up.

We were coming down the street towards the stop when it dawned on me I would not be to last. Suddenly, it seemed a veil came over me. My vision turned white and really quiet; as if someone muted everything. I said to myself, “I will lose consciousness”.

Thankfully, I was positioned close to the driver inside the vehicle, so I managed a couple of steps toward the driver and asked the driver to open the doors, telling him that I was about to vomit. The driver opened the doors and I stumbled out on to the pavement.

My intention was not to vomit in view of a busy multi-lane road, so I picked myself up and started trying to walk across to the park opposite the street, where I believed I could at least secretly conceal myself behind a bush to be sick. But then I must have lost consciousness. I sensed my body but I was unable to walk and my vision was blurry, leading me to start crawling towards my intended destination.

“Are you okay, dear?”

Right then, someone picked me up. I felt an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Everything alright, love?” I explained to this mysterious stranger that I had to to be sick. Therefore, he almost helped me walk into a close-by structure and guided me inside the women’s restroom. He inquired if I needed him to stay with me but I declined.

After a short while, I felt better to the point of sitting on the restroom floor and from the other side of the stall I heard him inquire, “Are you OK, love? Can I get you something?” I could not to get up at that moment but I did succeed to say thank you and following a brief period recovered the use of my feet. I returned home and then spent the following days healing from what turned out to be a horrible case of gastroenteritis.

I did not see his features – just his lower half and the big container for tools he was carrying – yet he rescued me, when I was completely helpless.

Frequently, society tends to make people defensive, aggressive and competitive. What he did was the kind of action that reverses that emotional callousness. He demonstrated that our default setting leans toward compassion, a quality I adore in other people.