Feeling So Sick Walking Was Impossible Until a Fellow Passenger Virtually Carried Me to the Toilets.

Back when I was my late teens, my daily commute meant taking an express bus. It remained full and would always be standing room only by the time I boarded.

On one specific day, I was feeling incredibly sick while the vehicle lurched around every turn. I kept telling myself to hold on just a little longer so the bus could arrived at where I needed to get off, at which point I could sprint quickly to the closest public restroom to vomit.

We were coming down the street towards the destination as I realised I wasn’t going to last. Suddenly, it was like a curtain fell over me. Everything just went hazy and muffled; similar to when one cut the sound. My mind raced, “I will lose consciousness”.

Fortunately, I stood toward the front of the bus, so I managed a couple of steps toward the driver and asked the driver to open the doors, informing him I needed to get ill. He opened the entrance and I stumbled out on to the pavement.

My intention was to avoid being sick in view of multiple lanes of cars, so I picked myself up and started trying to walk to the park on the other side, where I thought I’d at least be able to find some privacy near some foliage to vomit. Yet I apparently lost consciousness. I sensed my limbs, but walking was impossible and my vision was blurry, so I started inching my way to the park.

“You right, love?”

Right then, I was lifted up. I sensed an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I told this mysterious stranger that I required to vomit. Therefore, he almost carried me over to an adjacent building and placed me in the ladies’ toilets. He asked me if I wanted him to stay with me but I refused.

A few minutes later, I had recovered enough to sit down and from the other side of the door I heard him ask, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I was incapable to rise just then but I did succeed to express my gratitude and following a brief period recovered the use of my legs. I returned home and then spent the next few days getting over what turned out to be a nasty tummy bug.

I never saw his features – only his legs and a large steelwork tools container he had with him – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was completely helpless.

Many times, life tends to make people self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His was the sort of gesture that undoes that emotional callousness. He served as evidence that humanity’s innate tendency leans toward compassion, something I love in other people.