What is the most kind act that was done for you by a stranger?

A total stranger saved my life in Vietnam, but at least he was wearing the same uniform. : )

I’ve told this before on here, but I’ll tell it again.
I had taken my mom to the grocery store and she was using one of those wheel chairs that has the buggy over her lap. We had quite a few items in the buggy. When we got out to the parking lot, about halfway to the car it started raining. She said to just go to the car. I raced over to the car, opened the back door and started heaving bags in, not looking at my mom. When I got the last bag in, I turned around to help her get out of the wheel chair and there was a man with an umbrella standing over her, getting wet himself. She was smiling at me.
This brings tears to my eyes.

I came outside after a very upsetting doctor’s appointment and my car would not start. I was over an hour from my house, very unfamiliar with the area. A guy parked next to me had a very old van/truck of sorts, he was some sort of handyman, and he noticed I was having trouble. He tried to jump my car, but it didn’t work. He was about 4 years off the raft from Cuba, very broken English. Anyway, he took the battery out of my car drove me to the Sears just less than a mile away, I bought a new battery, he drove me back and hooked it up. The car started. He would not take any money from me. I still wish he would have.

@chyna I love that story. The grocery store nearest me when I lived in FL had a covered drive through area, during the rain they would give us umbrellas to walk to our cars, we leave the groceries, and then drive back returning the umbrella for the next person, and picking up our groceries under cover. I will never understand why all grocery stores don’t have umbrellas available at minimum for people.

@JLeslie That is a great idea. They should all follow that lead. It couldn’t cost them much and it would go a long way in establishing good relations with the shoppers.

Too many to count, people are really lovely as a rule. I’ve had strangers give up better parking near the hospital when they realized I was sick and weak (I looked pretty awful that day). Neighbors I had not yet met brought over food and did my yardwork when I went through cancer treatments. The food cart lady in the PICU of the hospital where Katawagrey was after she got run over made a special point of giving me 2 bags of the chips I liked best at lunch, the list could go on forever. I am always touched by the genuine kindness of strangers. I was Blanche DuBois in my last life.

It was when the car got a flat tire on the highway in Memphis. It was mid-July (translation: hot), noon, a few miles away from the closest exit, and I wore heels that day. The cell phone was at work, and the spare tire was flat. Stupid on my part…I know. I now have its pressure checked at least once a year. A guy saw my panicked face as he passed, worked his way over to the right lane, and then backed up to where my car was. He offered me his phone to call AAA and kindly waited until the tow truck arrived.

It’s a silly, simple story compared to what others have and will offer, but this man was very kind and holds a soft spot in my heart. His reason for doing this? “If my wife was in the same situation, I hope that someone would help her out in the same way.”

Our car died on the highway one night about 10 miles into a 90 mile trip. We walked to a gas station to call Triple A (early 1990’s, before cell phones), but they told us some bullshit about how they couldn’t come help us because that particular section of road was under contract with a local towing company. This crazy shirtless guy (it was about 50 degrees out) that was on the pay phone next to us overheard the conversation and offered to come take a look under the hood. We really didn’t know what to do since everyone we knew was out of town (it was Thanksgiving weekend), so we reluctantly got in his van and headed to our car. To make a long story short he couldn’t fix whatever was wrong, so he ended up driving us all the way to our destination 80 miles away :)

The story has an even wackier epilogue: he bought the dead car from us the next day.

I was being attacked by a rottweiler when a was five years old, and as we reached the street, a guy who happened to be there tackled the dog as it passed, allowing me to get safely into my house. The dog attacked a neighbor a bit later, biting him 23 times. He needed over six-hundred stitches . . .
(I still love dogs though, even rottweilers.)

@Prosb That is one of my worst nightmares.

Several times I’ve had the person in front of me pay for my car to go through a toll booth.

At my old job, a guy I don’t know bought my lunch one day. I know he was probably hitting on me, but that’s not the point… It was especially nice because I had been having a very bad day and I’d just noticed that I had no money (even though I don’t vocalize my discovery).

When I was 11 my boat motor died and after rowing for over a mile another boater came by and towed me the final mile back to my dock. I cried I was so happy for that!

I was shopping at Walmart with my daughter (she was just 1 years old at the time) during a very cold day during the last shopping week before Christmas. I walked to my car with my groceries and noticed I had a flat tire. I didn’t have a spare or a cell phone on me. I went inside to ask one of the cashiers for change for a $1 bill and told her what had happened. It was a cashier who was always very friendly with me when I was there. The man standing in line behind me heard about my dilemma and told me he could get a spare and change it for me. He happened to work at Goodyear. He told me to wait inside the store since I had my daughter and he would take care of the problem. Within an hour I had a spare tire put on my car and the man wouldn’t accept any money from me for his help. He left saying “Merry Christmas”.

I’ll never forget that kind moment.

I actually asked here about the injuries I got in a bad fall while running last weekend. I noted that here in the heart of supposedly hard-nosed Boston a crowd of people rushed to my assistance to see if I was OK. Someone offered to use their cell phone to call paramedics if I thought I needed them. I declined. I sustained a gash over my right eye and a busted lip which were bleeding pretty heavily. A lady found a clean tissue in her purse and offered me that to stop the bleeding. Even the little kids in tow were extremely solicitous. They didn’t know exactly what to do, but they could see form all the scrapes, abrasions and blood that it didn’t feel good and they tried to cheer me up. One person mentioned that at the pool in the park, all the lifeguards are trained in first aid. Being a pool member, I decided to hike over there and see if they thought I needed immediate attention or could wait till Monday for my nearby clinic to open.

As I was walking toward the pool, a woman passing by with her kids outside the park on the street sidewalk saw how battered I looked and asked me what happened. Hearing the story, she came into the park. In her purse, she had wet wipes that she used to help me clean up a huge area of scraped off skin on my right shoulder and abrasion wounds on the knees and palms. She even had one of those pop-to-cool ice packs in her purse, and popped it into action to stop the bleeding of the cut over my eye and the busted lip..

At the Mirabella pool, the lifeguard got a replacement to stand his watch on the pool and took time to cleanse all the wounds with disinfectant, and to dress them temporarily. He said the cut over the eye was long enough for stitches, but the skin was nicely closed and stitches probably wouldn’t be needed. He advised me on symptoms associated with traumatic brain injury and said that if I felt any of that, I should call for a ride to the emergency room immediately. Otherwise, he said, waiting for the clinic to open the next day should be fine.

When the doctor finally looked me over at the clinic I got new, more professionally done dressings for the wounds, and a tetanus booster shot. But the doctor said exactly what the lifeguard had about the gash over the eye and about symptoms of brain trauma. I was amazed and overjoyed at how many people offered to help and at how capable each was of doing at least something to get me back up and operating after the fall.

When I was a kid I ran away from home, and went around bumming for change so I could get a bus ride, and find my dad who was in another neighborhood. I visited him on every second weekend, so I knew where the place was; I just had to get there.

An old lady I asked gave me the money I needed. But she asked why I needed it, and I said I was running away from my mom who was gonna kick the shit out of me lol. She offered to call the cops. I got too scared to be brought back there, so I declined. She gave me her phone number along with the money, and told me to get my dad to phone her once I got there safe and sound.
Maybe her duty would have been to call the police, whatever I was saying, but she didn’t, and helped me on my quest. She was awesome, she knew I was desperate, and not lying.
My dad did indeed phone and thanked her. I really wish I knew what her name was, because if I ever have a daughter, I would have named her after that lady. My dad did get her name I think, but at that time I never thought to ask. Still, the coolest stranger ever.

There was also that guy downtown last year, who had a black leather jacket and long blond hair with a huge Viking beard, and who just said this to me as I was passing by him; Jesus loves you. (but in French)

That was pretty cool.

Several times I had to ask people around for some money [because I had my wallet home] to be able to buy a ticket for a bus. ^^

That’s easy (and it has happened more than once) while working in customer service- someone was VERY rude to me- and other customers piped up and basically said what I WOULD have- if remaining polite wasn’t part of my job. :)

Wow….I just discovered this jewel…I hope it’s not dead. I need to think….