I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious on the way.

Our family friend has always been a truly outsized figure. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he would be the one chatting about the latest scandal to befall a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.

Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, trying to cope, but appearing more and more unwell.

The Day Progressed

The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, we resolved to get him to the hospital.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

By the time we got there, his state had progressed from unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind filled the air.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety all around, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.

Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.

A Subdued Return Home

Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?

Recovery and Retrospection

While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I couldn’t possibly comment, but the story’s yearly repetition has done no damage to my pride. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.