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”.

The young doctor, older than me (I was 21), who took me to a room to tell me there was nothing more that could be done for my mum. A tear rolled down her face as she told me.

I'd arrived at the hospital after a call saying 'You need to come and say goodbye' from a relative. When I got there, my mum was sat up in bed and coherent. I was so confused and frustrated. I knew my mum had cancer, but I wasn't expecting that.

The doctor sat me down and sat in front of me, she held my hand and tried to explain, I only heard a noise. I do remember how compassionate and kind she was, and when I saw her cry, I knew that they'd done everything they could for my beautiful mum.

I think about our encounter often and I hope that doctor will now be a consultant in oncology (if that title exists?), and I hope she is still as kind and compassionate with her patients, and their loved ones, the way she was with me.

What a wonderful nurse and how kind of the taxi driver. I can only imagine how much comfort her advice and that time together has brought you since.

Nothing major, but when I was a teenager I was in what was House of Fraser in Oxford. My sister needed the loo, so my mum sent me in with her. Going on the up escalator was fine, but I was scared of the going on the down one. This lady very kindly took my hand and helped me go on the down one, saying she was scared of them too. I've never forgotten it. ❤️ I sometimes still struggle with going on the down escalators, but I always think back to that moment and it helps.

It was a Friday night train from Paddington to Wales, and it was packed out, so I was in the corridor. A young man, similar age to me, mid 20s, was there and we started chatting. He was heading to Haverfordwest to get the ferry back home to Ireland. I was getting off at Cardiff where my parents would be picking me up. We sat on the floor together, telling each other these things. There were nomobike phones, so no easy maps to hand. He got a pencil and drew a map of Ireland to show where he was from. I drew Dorset, where I grew up (this is pretty much the full extent of my life of crime in vandalism and graffiti.) And at Cardiff, he left off the train after me, kissed me, and got back on the train. That took some explaining to my watching, waiting parents.

In no way as significant or as heart hurting some of the posts on here, but on a plane from Australia to the UK. I was 21 years old. Got chatting to the chap next to me, he was one of the UK's top toxicologists. He told me how to kill someone with zero chance of it ever being detected. I'm 55 now, and I can still remember the conversation.

Think that’s one of their operating procedures. See someone alone and home in, giving them some guff about their plans being cancelled so it’s fate (or whatever shit they believe in) that they came across you.

On Saturday. Was driving with my Dad (not in UK) and noticed something in a snow bank right next to the road in a lay-by on the opposite side of the road. As we passed I realized it was a man. I turned around when I could and headed back. When we got there it was a man passed out right next to the road, in the snow, being sprayed by passing traffic. When I approached and talked to him he woke up surprised and utterly terrified. He kept shuffling away from me with tears in his eyes saying ha hadn’t done anything wrong and was just trying to hitchhike to his mums. He couldn’t really speak much, was freezing and soaked through.
We put him in my vehicle to take him to the next town even though it was in the opposite direction to where I was headed. He was super confused and he was shaking so much he couldn’t operate his phone. He did tell me he was diabetic which explained the confusion. The poor soul had his thumb out and just fell backwards in to the snow when his blood sugar plummeted.
I couldn’t believe how many people drove past him without stopping. It was getting dark,and he wouldn’t have survived the night.
we got him to a burger joint and. Bought him hot food and soft drinks for his blood sugar. The staff agreed to let him stay and warm up,and have directions to the nearest bus stop.
I hope he got on the bus and made it to his mums safely.
however, if I’d known he was diabetic from the start I wouldn’t have taken him anywhere. I’d have called an ambulance and they would have taken him to hospital, got him warm and dry and sorted his diabetes out.

Sounds like something from the amazing film, Before Sunrise with Ethan Hawk.

Loving this thread.

1. There was an older guy in a looooong queue at the hospital (not in UK) in front of me and my newborn son. He was easily 80 but insisted on giving me his chair because I was 'fresh from having a baby' and I 'didn't look right'. I was tired like all new parents are but felt okay... but passed out 20 mins later with a resounding thump. He had a lovely smile.

2. At the bank with my second son, again massive queue and I was right at the back,struggling to calm a 4 week old and on the verge of tears.One bank teller,a young guy that was maybe 25 at a push, asked the whole line (in a VERY loud voice) to let me go first and despite a few grumbles, I did :) I was finished in 2 minutes but once we got home,I realised I had completely soaked through my top with breast milk and it was very visible. No wonder that guy took pity on me :-)

3)The wonderful nurse that spotted me having a meltdown because I couldn't figure out how the water cooler worked. My mum was passing away from cancer. The lady gave me the biggest hug and let me sob on her shoulder (and didn't tell me off for kicking the shit out of the water cooler..)

Yes I messed up that story! The rural bus got us to the town centre. Then the taxi driver took us all the way to where I was staying, which was a lot more than £12!😄

I love this thread!
I remember one . Over 20 years ago I was very vulnerable. I was suffering from Anorexia at the time and weighed about 5 stone and am less than 5 ft tall - appearing a lot younger than my age (early 20s). It was a hot day and I treated myself to an ice cream. As I ate it in the street i was aware of a tall man nearby watching me. I tried to tell myself he wasn't watching me it was just that I was self conscious about eating. When I finished I went into a big Tesco store , I walked around for probably 10 minutes looking at products and then I came out and went to Blockbuster video to choose a film. While I was in Blockbuster a young woman came up to me and said she didn't want to alarm me but there was a man who had been following me and he was waiting outside! (It was the same tall man). I was really scared but didn't know what to do .
A few minutes later the woman came back and said I'm quite worried for you- can my boyfriend and I give you a lift home? I was relieved and went with them getting into their car outside the shop.
As we started driving away I panicked that maybe it was all a trick and they were in with the tall man. So a few blocks later I asked if they would drop me off. They asked if I was sure and let me out.
I am sure that they were genuine and I always feel thankful that they probably saved me from danger.

When travelling in my 20s, I visited an amazing temple and it unexpectedly snowed, I was not wearing appropriate footwear and quickly got my feet soaked. When I stopped at a restaurant to have lunch I tried to unobtrusively take off my shoes and socks and have them drying under my chair whilst we are. Another dinner came over smiling got my shoes and socks and hung them in front of the fire! We didn’t speak the same language but it was such a kind thing to do I’ve never forgotten!

Care to share?

😂🤣
lovely thread

I was in town and I saw 3 police men and 1 police lady apprehend a woman - the woman didn’t look to be a troublemaker ot anything but something was clearly amiss as she was screaming and the police woman pinned her on the floor- I then for some reason became aware of 2 little boys just looking stunned and I realised that it was their mum 😢 I quickly went over to them and asked them who they were with and they pointed to her - so I took their hands and distracted them by looking in Woolworths window at the toys we were talking about Thomas the tank engine as I saw from the corner of my eye the woman being thrown into a police van as the situation calmed- i attracted the police man to come over and explained these 2 little boys were the sons of the woman.
He looked absolutely gobsmacked and I had to say what they had told me that daddy was playing football and wasn’t going to collect mummies medicine so we had come to boots to get it and mummy was shouting.
I had my own children with me who were old enough to wait on the bench without me whilst I helped the 2 little boys so I just handed them over to
the policeman but it’s always haunted me what those little boys witnessed that day.

I had recently moved to London and had started a graduate training programme. We'd gone on a night out in Shoreditch as part of an induction event. After a few hours my head hurt and I wanted to go home but my flatmate wouldn't come with me. I've always been terrible with directions and this both was pre smartphones and before Shoreditch was as gentrified as it is now. I remember wandering the streets trying to find Liverpool Street station and getting increasingly stressed and nervous.

All of a sudden, I felt an arm loop into mine. It was a young blonde woman who could've been no more than in her early thirties. She gave me the most beautiful beaming smile and said she'd walk with me anywhere I wanted to go. She safely delivered me to the station and went on her way. I had walked over twenty minutes in the wrong direction beforehand! I honestly think she was an angel.

Love this thread

My DH, who is not generally prone to flights of fancy, swears that a man on a bike was an angel. He used to cycle to school (teacher, not child) down some really dark, back lanes. He left early and never, ever saw anyone else, apart from this one morning where a man on a bike came round the corner and shouted at DH to be careful as there was a tree down. There is no way he would have seen it and would have come off his bike in a very nasty way.

We were in Italy for a friend's wedding and had to get to the (remote!) wedding destination by train.

On the first train, the conductor came round, looked at our tickets and started speaking angrily in Italian to us. As we didn't know any Italian, he was met with blank stares. The young Italian woman sitting beside us told us that we should have validated our tickets before boarding and we would be fined. I told her we hadn't realised we needed to validate them. She got into an animated conversation with the conductor and after a few minutes, he handed us our tickets back. She had argued our case for us and we got away without a fine. We thanked her profusely but she acted like it was absolutely nothing.

We went to switch trains and, at the station, we realised the train we expected to take wasn't running because it was a Sunday. As we were trying to figure out what to do, a young man (not a staff member) approached us, asked us the name of the town we were going to and told us to follow him. It was quite a small train; he brought us to the first carriage, went to the driver and had a chat in Italian with him, then told us we'd be fine and got off the train again. The train took off and after a little bit, it pulls to a stop, the driver gets out of his seat holding a key and tells us to follow him. He manually unlocks the doors and lets us out at the station of the town we were going to. The way the young man and that driver went out of their way to help us was amazing.

The train station we ended up at was closed and was outside the town (literally in the middle of a field) so we called our hotel to see if they could arrange a taxi for us. The hotel owner came to collect us himself and wouldn't take any money for it.

Amazing people, the Italians!

Dh bike broke mikes from home in the Cotswolds on a very cold day. All the posh SUVs ignored him. Lady in tiny car stopped assessed situation then said stay there she drove home got her partner who came in his van and they took Dh and his bike to bike shop. Lovely people.

I had a medical emergency and collapsed at a London station. People stepped over me or took videos, but I will always remember the kindness of two women. One who stopped to bend down and place my bag to support my head when I was crying in pain. It was such a kind gesture and meant the world to me. The other was a member of staff who held my hand and distracted me with videos of the time she swam with dolphins. It was a horrendous experience but I wish I could say thank you

All of these stories are amazing. It’s so nice to hear lovely things for a change

Not a lovely one like most of the posts here.

I was a high risk missing person. Didn't want to be found. A man noticed I was in a state and approached me, and said he was on the run from the police. I said I was too.. so we ran off and hid for hours in our town centre. Pathetic and a bit weird. I got sectioned and he got arrested. Was a very strange night!

I had some bad news and was quietly crying on the underground home, trying not to draw attention to myself. Someone came and just put some tissues in my hand as they were leaving the train. It meant a lot in the moment that they’d noticed me and tried to help a little.