Man vomits on Adelaide Metro train on commute to Adelaide CBD

A city office worker had an experience he’ll never forget on public transport this morning … but at least the stench wasn’t too bad.

It was just after 8am on a Wednesday morning when a man projectile vomited all over my morning train.

Now there’s a sentence I never imagined myself writing. But that’s exactly what happened on the way into the office this morning.

I was coming in on the Gawler line and Ole Mate the spewer, let’s call him Chuck, had boarded the train with a female companion only a couple of stops earlier.

They looked like they were aged in the mid to late forties, but they had obviously been doing it tough so they could have been younger.

He was pushing a shopping trolley full of plastic bags and a few other possessions.

They were quiet during their short time on board, and people around them stuck to the public transport tradition of burying their heads in their phones.

No-one noticed when they got up to disembark less than 10 minutes after boarding.

But some ears pricked up as we heard the woman loading berating her companion: “Stop it … stop it … No … you can’t”.

vomit on the floor of an Adelaide Metro train during the morning commute to Adelaide,

When I looked up the man was hunched over his trolley. Silent. Still.

But within a second, just before the door opened, out it came.

As far as vomits go, it was a good one. It was pure liquid. And lots of it. It splashed all over the plastic shield that welcomes people onto the train, and the handrail, and the door and the machine onto which commuters tap their Metro Cards. And, of course, it created a rather large puddle which greeted any new passenger entering through that door.

The vomit lasted maybe five seconds. When he was done, Ole Mate (aka Chuck) looked up to his partner and simply said he couldn’t help it.

The train stopped. The door opened. The couple trudged off. The train was relatively empty at that stage, so fortunately his vomit didn’t hit any other passengers.

But the puddle gradually spread as it sloshed around when the train started and stopped at the next few stations.

The train filled as we neared Adelaide. For a while, people avoided the wet floor and the surrounding seats. But it was peak hour, and eventually they had little choice but to wade through the mess, spreading it further throughout the carriage.

Fortunately the smell of whatever our protagonist had been drinking in the lead-up to his … accident … wasn’t too overwhelming.

But it was a morning commute I won’t forget for a while and Chuck, if you’re out there, I hope you’re feeling better.