I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to scarcely conscious during the journey.
He has always been a man of a larger than life figure. Clever and unemotional – and not one to say no to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he would be the one gossiping about the latest scandal to befall a member of parliament, or entertaining us with stories of the outrageous philandering of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.
We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, whisky in one hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Morning Rolled On
The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but he didn’t look it. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Thus, prior to me managing to don any celebratory headwear, we resolved to take him to A&E.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, his state had progressed from peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.
Positive medical attendants, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to cold bread sauce and holiday television. We saw a lighthearted program on television, probably Agatha Christie, and played something even dafter, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
It was already late, and snowing, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?
The Aftermath and the Story
Although our friend eventually recovered, 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 gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or contains some artistic license, I am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.