Feeling So Sick I Couldn’t Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Essentially Lifted Me to a Bathroom.
During my my late teens, my regular journey to work was on an crowded coach. It remained crowded and was consistently completely full by the time I boarded.
One particular morning, I was feeling incredibly sick when the coach swayed around each corner. I repeatedly told myself to persevere just a little longer before the bus reached my destination, at which point I could make a mad dash to the closest washroom to vomit.
We were coming down the road leading to the destination as I understood I would not be to make it. In an instant, it felt as if a fog descended upon me. Everything just went white and really quiet; as if someone muted everything. My mind raced, “I’m going to faint”.
Luckily I was near the front inside the vehicle, so I took a few steps to ask the driver and told the operator to pull over, explaining to him I needed to get ill. He opened the bus doors and I weakly exited on to the pavement.
I was resolved to not get sick before multiple lanes of cars, so I forced myself up and began attempting to make my way toward the green space across the road, where I believed I could at least discreetly hide behind a bush to throw up. However I likely blacked out. I sensed my physical self, yet I was unable to walk and my vision was blurry, so I began crawling towards my intended destination.
“Are you okay, dear?”
In that instant, someone picked me up. There was a strong arm supporting me and heard a man say, “Everything alright, love?” I told this mysterious stranger that I required to be sick. So he virtually carried me over to a nearby building and placed me inside the women’s restroom. He asked me whether I required him to stay with me but I declined.
After a short while, I had recovered sufficiently to sit on the toilet when from beyond the door came his voice asking, “Are you feeling better, dear? Is there anything you require?” I was incapable to stand up at that moment but I did succeed to say thank you and following a brief period was able to move my feet. I returned home and then spent several days healing from what turned out to be a severe stomach virus.
I never saw the stranger’s face – just his lower half and a large container for tools he was carrying – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was completely helpless.
Often this world has a way of making you defensive, aggressive and competitive. What he did was the kind of action that reverses that protective shell. He demonstrated that our default setting is towards kindness, something I love in other people.
