One woman called an ambulance, another offered me cold water, then two guys I’d never seen before carried my husband’s stuff to the car and offered me a lift to hospital

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I had just put something in the oven when the phone rang. It was my husband, who hesitated for a moment before he said: “I’ve just been stung by a stingray. Can you come down to the beach?”

He’d taken the car to drive down for a swim, so I was going to have to walk. It was a hot January day and would have taken me about 15 minutes on foot, so when I passed a house a few doors down with two cars parked outside, I knocked on the front door. I’d never met them before, but I thought, the worst they can say is no. I told them what had happened and one of them drove me.