Feeling So Sick Walking Was Impossible When a Man Essentially Lifted Me to the Toilets.

At the age of nineteenth year, my morning travel was on an express bus. It was perpetually crowded and invariably became standing room only once I got on.

One particular morning, I started experiencing terribly ill as the bus swayed around the bends. I repeatedly told myself to persevere just a little longer so the bus could reached where I needed to get off, and then I could rush hurriedly to the closest public toilet to throw up.

The bus was approaching the street towards my stop and I realised I wasn’t going to last. In an instant, it seemed a curtain fell over me. Everything just went white and really quiet; similar to when one cut the sound. I thought, “I am about to pass out”.

Fortunately, I stood near the front inside the vehicle, so I took a couple of steps forward and requested that the driver to pull over, explaining to him I needed to be sick. He opened the doors and I stumbled out on to the pavement.

I was determined to avoid being sick in front of six lanes of traffic, so I gathered myself and began attempting to make my way across to the park on the other side, where I believed I could at least secretly conceal myself near some foliage to be sick. Yet I apparently fainted. I sensed my physical self, yet I couldn’t walk or see properly, leading me to start dragging myself toward my intended destination.

“You right, love?”

At that moment, I got scooped up. There was a strong arm supporting me and heard a man say, “You right, love?” I managed to tell the kind passerby that I needed to be sick. So he virtually carried me over to an adjacent building and put me into the female bathroom. He inquired whether I required him to stay with me but I said no.

A few minutes later, I regained my composure to the point of sitting down when from beyond the stall I heard him inquire, “Do you need anything, love? Can I get you something?” I could not to stand up at that moment but I was able to say thank you and shortly thereafter regained the function of my legs. I made my way home and then spent several days healing from what turned out to be a nasty tummy bug.

I never glimpsed that man’s face – just his lower half and the big metal toolbox he held – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was completely helpless.

Frequently, society has a way of making you self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. What he did was the kind of action that undoes that protective shell. He served as evidence that our default setting is to be kind, a quality I adore about my fellow humans.