🔗 Share this article I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious on the way. Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life figure. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. At family parties, he is the person gossiping about the newest uproar to catch up with a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years. Frequently, we would share the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell. The Day Progressed The morning rolled on but the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful. Thus, prior to me managing to placed a party hat on my head, we resolved to drive him to the emergency room. We thought about calling an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day? A Deteriorating Condition Upon our arrival, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air. Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit all around, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables. Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so particular to the area: “duck”. A Subdued Return Home When visiting hours were over, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and holiday television. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a local version of the board game. By then it was quite late, and snow was falling, and I remember feeling deflated – 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 later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas 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 contains some artistic license, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling has done no damage to my pride. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.