I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from unwell to scarcely conscious during the journey.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized character. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and not one to say no to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he is the person chatting about the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club over the past 40 years.
Frequently, we would share Christmas morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Day Progressed
The hours went by, however, the humorous tales were absent as they usually were. He was convinced he was OK but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Thus, prior to me managing to don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. Other outpatients helped us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety in every direction, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that lovely local expression so unique to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
Once the permitted time ended, we made our way home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, perhaps a detective story, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
It was already late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Healing and Reflection
While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday is not my most cherished memory, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
