I Drove a Family Friend to A&E – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious on the way.
Our family friend has always been a truly outsized character. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he would be the one chatting about the newest uproar to befall a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.
It was common for us to pass the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and sustained broken ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, trying to cope, but looking increasingly peaky.
As Time Passed
The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent as they usually were. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, 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 thought about calling an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone 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. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.
Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We watched something daft 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 it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – had we missed Christmas?
The Aftermath and the Story
While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get DVT. And, although that holiday does not rank among my favorites, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition has done no damage to my pride. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
