In Such Poor Health Walking Was Impossible As a Stranger Practically Supported Me to a Bathroom.

Back when I was my late teens, my daily commute was on an packed public transport. It was perpetually crowded and would always be completely full when I stepped aboard.

During a certain commute, I began feeling terribly ill as the bus lurched around each corner. I repeatedly told myself to hold on another few kilometres until the bus arrived at my stop, so I could then sprint quickly to the closest public toilet to vomit.

The bus was approaching the street towards my stop and it dawned on me I would not be to last. All of a sudden, it seemed a curtain fell over me. The world became blank and silent; like someone had cut the sound. My mind raced, “I’m going to faint”.

Fortunately, I stood near the front on the bus, so I managed several steps to ask the driver and told the operator to pull over, informing him I was going to be sick. He opened the entrance and I weakly exited onto the sidewalk.

I was resolved to not get sick in front of a busy multi-lane road, so I picked myself up and began attempting to walk to the park across the road, where I thought I could at least secretly conceal myself among some shrubs to throw up. However I apparently blacked out. I sensed my body but walking was impossible or see properly, so I began crawling towards the park.

“You right, love?”

In that instant, I got scooped up. There was an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “You right, love?” I explained to this mysterious stranger that I required to vomit. So he virtually carried me over to a close-by structure and placed me inside the women’s restroom. He asked me whether I required him to wait for me but I refused.

Not long after, I regained my composure to the point of sitting on the restroom floor when from beyond the door came him inquire, “Are you OK, love? Do you need anything?” I could not to get up right away but I did succeed to thank him and after a few more minutes regained the function of my limbs. I returned home and then spent the next few days getting over which was a nasty tummy bug.

I never saw that man’s face – only his legs and the big metal toolbox he was carrying – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was completely helpless.

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 our default setting is towards kindness, a quality I adore about my fellow humans.