Hello everyone,

I was inspired to ask this question by two rather uncomfortable experience I've had recently.

The first one: Two weeks ago I was on my way to the hospital. I went there by train because that particular hospital was located in a different city. For clarification, I'm from Switzerland where we don't have subways. Due to the fact that our cities are quite small and located close together, most Swiss people commute by train. Anyway. I got off the train at my stop and waited for a few moments to let all the other people walk past me on the platform. I usually do this so I have the platform for myself and feel less stressed. Then I proceeded to walk to the stairs that would take me to the underpass. I have a tiny bit of vision left but it is really tiny, about 2/100. When I reached the stairs I quickly looked down and listened as I always do. I couldn't hear or see anyone. So began walking down, keeping to the very right side of the stairs, as I had been taught in O&M training. I was in a good mood on that morning and so my "walking" was actually more of a running. There was no need to be scared because I had my caned. Suddenly and without warning, I crash into another person. Now, I'm a pretty big guy, 6'1'' and maybe 220lbs, so you can imagine the momentum I had and the force of impact. What I'm going to describe next took place in just a few split seconds. The person - a young woman around my age as it later turned out - lost her balance and tipped over. She raised her arms in shock and I could see there was zero chance this was going to end well for her. It was clearly too late for her to grab the handrail. In front of my inner eye, I already saw her smashing on the concrete steps with her face, cutting her forehead open at the pointy stone edges. The staircase was still long underneath us, so she would've fallen/rolled down a long way. Imagining this made my blood freeze. I don't know quite how I did it but with the instincts of a sighted person I lunged forward and grabbed her by the tip of her coat. Then I quickly and forcefully pulled her back towards me. When she was stable on her feet again, she turned around and gave me a very angry stare. I was still in shock and kept apologizing. She eventually walked off without much comment. For a long time after this experience I wondered why this girl had been quietly standing on a random step of long staircase. First I thought she had been walking with crutches but that's not possible because she was gone so quickly afterwards. My guess is that she was probably staring into her smartphone and didn't notice me approach for that reason.

The second experience happened just two days ago. I walk through the hall of a big train station with my cane. Average speed, nothing out of the norm. Suddenly an elderly man runs passed me as though he was getting chased by the police. Maybe he tried to catch a train, I have no idea. He someone misses my cane although there was a lot of free space around me and the cane was easy to spot - and trips right over it. The man didn't raise his hands for protection, so he fell right on his face on the stone floor. Within seconds, there was a large crowd of people standing around him, trying to help. I heard people say "give me some tissues" and "he's bleeding a lot". I felt absolutely terrible but didn't know what to do. I wanted to say sorry but nobody seemed to care about me (they were all trying to help him). Eventually there was this sweet old lady who grabbed me by the arm and said: "you should just go, it's not your fault, I'm sure he'll be alright."

Now, here's the thing: rationally I know that neither of these incidents were my fault. Obviously. There was no way I could have seen these people and since they were both sighted, it was probably *their* responsibility to watch out for me. After all, they see about 50 times better than me. But that doesn't change the fact that on an emotional level, I'm still a bit shook up over these experiences. Especially the first one. By the width of a hair, this girl escaped some very, very serious injuries. And even if it hadn't been my fault technically speaking, I would've felt responsible nonetheless because I bumped into her.

This leads me to my question: has anyone of you ever experienced similar things? I would love to hear your stories. Also, how did you act and most importantly, how did/do you think and feel about those accidents or almost-accidents?

Apologies for the long post.