I stared up at the faces surrounding me. Bewildered. Frantically trying to make sense of my situation.

I tried to answer their questions through the pain, confusion, delirium.

I felt my body going into shock. I’m trained in Wilderness First Aid—armed with enough medical knowledge to know my situation was dire. But at the time I didn’t know I was in the process of bleeding to death. None of the people trying to help me knew it either. None of us knew that under my thick motorcycle gear hid a horrendous femur shaft fracture. A break which had also shredded my femoral artery when the headlight of a car crushed my leg against my Triumph Bonneville T100.

I felt consciousness slip away. I fought against it. In a brief moment of clarity—it came in waves—I looked at the faces of the people helping me. Their intensity, dedication, and concern. I realized I needed to let go. Trust. I closed my eyes and let them tend to me, a multitude of hands on my broken body. Voices from all directions discussing what to do and when.

I was riding solo that day when a careless stranger changed my life forever. And other strangers saved my life. I didn’t know any of the people circling me, asking questions, calling for help. I didn’t know any of the emergency responders who whisked me away to the trauma center, keeping me stabilized in the process. All strangers.

A struggle in perspective

When you read the word “strangers” what is your initial response? Is it fear, curiosity, indifference, or something else?

Strangers represent an unknown. How we respond to unknowns varies by our personalities and experience, of course. The concept of strangers has been on my mind for some time now. It’s something I’ve attempted to reconcile for the last three and a half years.

I like strangers. To me they represent opportunity. To make a new friend, to learn something, to step outside of my existing social circle and broaden my world view. It’s what makes talking with others so compelling when I’m on the road.

But three years ago one stranger changed my life for the worse in a big way when she hit me with her car. She took a tremendous amount from me and placed burdens on the rest of my life, physically and emotionally.

I’ve spent time over the last three years reconciling that life-changing event with the spectrum of other encounters with strangers I’ve had before and since. Despite that event and the multitude of minor insults we all face making our way in the world, I still believe that most of my encounters are positive. Part of that is paying attention to the good ones and what you invest in your interactions. It is a two-way street, after all. You’re a stranger to others, too.

Choosing good

When I get bogged down in the details of my dealings with the woman who hit me, I have to make myself step back and think of how I’m still here. Strangers.

Strangers saved my life. The nurse who came upon the crash scene first. The EMTs. The firefighters. The people who donated the blood I received. Surgeons. Nurses. I honestly don’t know how many people I owe my life to. I also don’t know who many of them are but I think about them daily.

Ultimately I want to honor the many rather than allow the one to color my world view. But it’s taking time. Time to get past the daily struggle of what one person’s actions represent in my life. It takes getting past the biggest part of trauma to be able to turn that corner.

So I remember Snowpocalypse and the man who spent the entire night in the freezing cold helping others, including me. And I do what I can when someone else needs help. The point is we’re all in this together. We get to write the script every day with our actions. Good or bad, large or small, with profound grace or with catastrophic consequences.

What script will you write today? Tomorrow? Will you take the care, at a minimum, to do no harm? Will you go the extra step and take a minute to make a stranger’s day better? Will you thank a stranger for improving your day?

We all have a choice every day to see the good and be the good in the world. What will you choose?