I Took a Close Friend of the Family to A&E – and he went from unwell to barely responsive during the journey.

Our family friend has always been a larger than life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to catch up with a local MP, 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 the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, whisky in one hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, trying to cope, but looking increasingly peaky.

As Time Passed

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.

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

A Deteriorating Condition

By the time we got there, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of hospital food and wind filled the air.

Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer in every direction, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.

Cheerful nurses, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that great term of endearment so particular to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

When visiting hours were over, we returned home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

It was already late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?

The Aftermath and the Story

While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted deep vein thrombosis. And, while that Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but hearing it told each year 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”.