What is the most memorable moment you shared with a stranger who you never saw again?

[kgfreo]

In my line of work I came across a lot of people during the worst times of their lives but this happened when I was off duty.

I was driving to my parents house when I saw an older lady laying on the footpath with blood pouring down her face. There was a huge cut on her forehead and her brow ridge was swelling up. I pulled my car across the road and asked her if I could help her or if I could call anyone for her. She refused to let me bring her to a doctor and couldn’t remember any phone numbers so I brought her to a nearby chemist and the shop assistants started to clean her up and got her tea. I felt like a spare part and left quietly.

A few months later I had to go back to the same chemist and when I approached the counter, the assistant said “It’s you!! You’re the girl who helped a woman who had fallen on the road! We’ve been looking and talking about you for months”.
She went on to explain that the lady had been searching for me for months and was referring to me as an Angel that came out of nowhere and disappeared as quick as I had appeared. I asked the shop assistant not to mention that she’d met me. I’m not that significant of a person and I think it’s a nicer thought for that lady to hold on to instead of meeting me.

There are plenty more stories but that means more as I was not in a uniform just “doing my job”.

Not so Much a stranger, but a fellow student on a course I was on, we was on a trip and I was outside looking the the plan're in the yard area, as the rest of the group was in the cafe/tea room part, when I went into the cafe, to see if I was needed and or see who else was their , my eyes locked with another student and held the gaze for a few seconds, then as I was unsure of what to do next, I went back outside.

We never spoke in person but to this day I wonder what conversations and activities we could of achieved.

*I was looking at the plants in the yard

This is such a lovely thread - thank you for starting it OP. I have had many encounters with strangers but my favourite I think was when I was on a cycling holiday in Ireland with a friend when we were 19. We were camping but had to get back to Dublin for the ferry and couldn’t find anywhere to camp. In the end, with the audacity of youth we just went up to a big house with a big garden and asked if we could pitch in their garden. The lady looked a bit surprised but said yes. Her husband turned out to have early onset dementia and they were both so lovely. She came out and said they couldn’t leave us out there and had made up a spare room for us! She fed us and let us have showers. Then their son, who was about 20 came home and I ended up chatting about poetry with him for the evening and he gave me a poetry book when we left. It was just such a lovely, unexpected bit of the trip. It’s 30 years ago now but it still makes me smile.

can this be nominated for classics (if that still exists)?

Sadly the death of their child.

About 15 years ago, after a really bad break up I finally made it out of the house to have coffee with my friend. The only time I would leave home would be to go to work and back, I wouldn't leave the house for any other reason, refused to socialise and barely spoke to anyone, for months this went on, but for some reason decided that day I just had to.

I hardly made any eye contact in the cafe with anyone but my friend who was sitting opposite me. I felt miserable, insecure, ugly and a shell of the person I once was. After a little while my friend said something that made me laugh, like really laugh, the first time I had laughed in a long time. It felt amazing.

A woman sitting on the table next to us, directly horizontal to me, got up to leave but leaned over to me and just said 'you know, you are quite possibly the most beautiful person I think I've ever seen' and left before I could even think of what to say back.

She really changed my whole mindset. I needed to get back to the old, happier version of myself. And (after some hard graft) I did just that. Will never forget her.

The receptionist on the ward when my husband died. Everything she did was perfect.

I’ve had a couple. The obstetrician who silently struggled to deliver my son. She saved his life as he had the cord around his neck , didn’t breathe for 16 minutes (!) and was in scbu for days. He’s 17 and fine. She left before I could even thank her. The lady at the undertakers who walked me down to the barn where they had my elderly dad laid out. She told me he was handsome as I sobbed. Never saw her again either. The two mountain bikers who held me up from fainting and fed me an electrolyte gel after I dislocated my hand. Lovely guys. Strangers can be wonderful….

This thread is mainly about the kindness of strangers, which I’m not surprised at, as I believe that the majority of people are kind and caring and generally wish the best for others.

Such a wonderful thread, even with some of the heartbreaking situations.

When I was about 14 I went camping in a local forest with some friends. We heard screaming and I bolted straight towards the sound without thinking, found a woman by the river sobbing that her boyfriend had stormed out drunk saying that he was going to kill himself. I hugged her and spent some time reassuring her that people were just silly when they’d had a drink and he was probably already back at the house, then after about 10 minutes her boyfriend came floating down the river facedown. I’m not quite sure what happened because it felt like time stopped, I remember we both grabbed him by the shoulders to drag him out and his skin was white as snow, and then the police turned up and took over. They said that someone had seen him jump from a high bridge further up the river, I have no idea if he survived or what the woman’s name was.

I wrote off my car a few years ago and the man in the car behind was so kind, he pulled me out, got my bag, helped me to the side of the road, called the police and ambulance and gave me his coat and when I burst into tears he just sat with his arm around me and said lots of comforting things. I had a face and head injury that looked a lot worse than it was and I was very scared by all the blood. i didn’t get his name or number and I wish I could thank him.
The night my brother died, we went to a neighbour who is a paramedic in desperation as the ambulance hadn’t come and woke him up at 4am and he was so so kind and came and tried to save him even though he was probably exhausted and was off duty. I well up every time I pass his house.

This has just broke my heart 😢

A car passed me, and every single person in the car was leaned across sucking their thumbs at me

That was so cruel of them

I’m in absolute bits reading this thread but this one is really playing on my mind. I can imagine the panic you must’ve felt and so helpless - I had a similar experience with my mentally unwell df.

I really hope you’ve managed to have a good life despite experiences like this as a child

I was travelling in a remote part of Japan, not yet fluent in the language, and finding the crush of people, not one English speaker, and being unable to communicate as well as I would have liked, quite overwhelming. I was in a market, and suddenly, in the distance, I saw the tall, unmistakeable figure of an American striding towards me. We approached each other with a huge smile, chatted a bit in English, high-fived, and headed off. The two of us sure stood out in the crowd - one a pale redhead, the other black. The relief of being able, just briefly, to chat in English was amazing.

23 years ago as an 18 year old I was waiting for my Dad to pick me up from my work at a Supermarket after it had closed. It was Winter, raining and dark with nobody around at all. The Carpark looked so spooky. All the time I had horrible thoughts come to my mind about someone nasty coming around the corner. To say I was scared was an understatement. Then an elderly Lady with her Granddaughter came out of no where and asked if I was ok. I was so glad to see her. With a lump in my throat I told her I was waiting for my Dad who was late. She said she would stand with me until my Dad came. I was so grateful and thanked her for her kindness. She waited about 15 minutes with me in the cold. And when Dad finally came I sat in the Car and sobbed. Dad was not late after that!
I often think of the Lady. I never saw her after that.

When I was 10 my dad was driving the family home along the motorway after a weekend at our caravan.

An elderly lady was waving a white hankie next to her car that was pulled over on the hard shoulder (this was before mobile phones).

My dad stopped our car and walked back to see what the problem was. The lady's husband had chest pains and a pain in his left arm. My parents suspected he was having a heart attack (they knew the symptoms as my dad had had a couple by that stage).

My mum wanted to try and get him out of the car and give him CPR but it was
too dangerous on the side of the road.

My mum and dad knew there were services not far up ahead, so therefore got in the old lady's car, with her husband, and my dad drove their car up to the services where they phoned for an ambulance.

My brother who was in our car had recently passed his test, so followed along in our car.

The ambulance was going to be some while because it had to go past the services in the opposite direction, come off the motorway at the next exit, then come back on to "our side".

In the meantime my mum (who was not a nurse but had seen my dad being given CPR previously) got the old man out of the car and endeavoured to keep him alive. His poor wife was watching and I caught glimpses.

The paramedics arrived and took over. My mum and dad went to the hospital with the lady (my dad drove their car). My brother drove me and my other brother, and the couple's dog, home to our house in our car.

I can always remember that the weekly charts were on in the car (it was a Sunday late afternoon/early evening) and a song came on with the lyrics "heartbeat, increasing heartbeat" (it was "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" by Sparks in 1974).

Sadly the old man didn't make it but his wife was so grateful for my parent's support. Dad drove their dog back to the lady a few days later. They swapped Christmas cards for a few years but never saw each other again!

@33goingon64 I have nothing like the PP encounters which have had me in tears (esp elderly man with dementia in cafe story), and all the amazing things people have done in crisis situations ; but I have a similar one to yours - I was out at a gay club with my friends, they were doing their thing on the dance floor and I was just watching the fun from a balcony on my own with a drink. I glanced round and saw the most beautiful man coming towards me out of all the smoke and noise. As I am a woman I didn't think much of it except to notice how gorgeous he was. But he kept walking towards me (I am looking round at this point to see who he's advancing on) and then came straight up to me, literally gathered me in his arms and gave me the most swoony gentle kiss I think I have ever had, kissed my neck, etc. We kissed for a while, said nothing, then he pulled away with his devastating smile and disappeared into the crowd. My friends on the dance floor saw it all happen and were cheering and clapping, gawd. I was there for hours and didn't see him again....but it was one of the best kisses I have ever had.....a very brief encounter.

I was on the other side of a story like yours, OP.

My bike was hit by a car when I was 16. I was lying in shock with people buzzing around, asking me questions and being busy. One woman just kept her hand on my shoulder and spoke to me calmly and reassuringly. Her warm hand felt literally like a lifeline, keeping me from panic. That little thing meant the world to me. She disappeared once the paramedics had taken charge of me, and I never got to tell her how important she was in those ten minutes.

Not me, but my nan

She was 85 at the time
During lockdown, She would spend the days just sitting and looking out the window,
and nearly every single person that passed waved at her

It was really lovely for her and she will remember those people forever

This is a happy story 😀

Flew out of Glasgow for a family holiday years ago: myself, DH and two children. Usually I end up with the kids, but for this flight DH was with them and I was on a different row on the opposite side of the plane. It was late summer and the Scottish schools were back, so we took advantage of visiting family then bagging cheap flights to Spain.

I ended up sitting in the middle of a football team who had won their local league and were off to Benidorm to celebrate!

At first they were loud and rowdy, but I wasn't intimidated. The two lads I was sat in the middle of were making fun of me, teasing that I couldn't understand their Glaswegian accents - until I told them I WAS a Glaswegian, just one who had lived in Yorkshire for over 20 years! They bought me drinks for the entire flight (cans of cider with a vodka miniature poured in!) and thoroughly entertained me for the whole flight. They were great fun, telling me all about themselves and rude and funny stories about the team, and as we left the plane at Alicante they were giving it "come with us Misses, have a holiday without the weans, we'll look efter ye!"

I was drunk and my sides were sore from laughing for the entire flight. I hope they had a great holiday!

Not moving, just silly:

Waiting to collect my bags after a flight, I was watching luggage go round on the carousel. In the distance I saw a baby's car seat on the carousel. The seat was facing away from me. I watched it approaching for some time. At last it came near and turned the corner, revealing that (of course!!) there was no baby sitting in it. Bizarrely, this surprised me.

The man standing next to me had exactly the same thought. He looked at me, raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment, pointed at the car seat, shook his head, and said "no baby!"

I spread my hands wide, raised my eyebrows as if thunderstruck, and said in amazement, "I know!"

We burst out laughing.

I was standing outside a closed London Underground tube station
Waiting for a friend who was on a tube that had hit a person who had jumped in front of it
They had sadly died
I was passing time talking to the police officer and heard on the radio it was a woman who was deceased …
A frantic lady ran over and said her son wasnt home and he was upset and was it him
The police officer reassured her it was a woman
She was relived and went home
About an hour later, it came over the radio it was actually a man

I often think about the lady and wonder if it was her son who died that day

I've offered lifts to people who look like they need it.

One occasion I'd gone to the Dr with my carer, on the way there I'd seen a lady who looked to be struggling but I had an appointment to get to.

On the way home she was still walking quite badly so I stopped and asked if she needed a lift, my carer helped her into the back of the car and put her seat belt on for her..

Apparently she normally used a wheelchair but that dat she had no one to push her and she'd been to the same Dr as me.

As we were pulling up she said, "Well someone 'up there' is looking after me today", I started laughing and said, "If he is he has a sense of humour, we're both atheists".

Not life changing like most of these but it still amuses me when I think about her.0