I Drove 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 truly outsized figure. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person chatting about the newest uproar to involve a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the outrageous philandering of various Sheffield Wednesday players during the last four decades.
We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and advised against air travel. Consequently, he ended up back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Morning Rolled On
The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but his condition seemed to contradict this. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
Thus, prior to me managing to don any celebratory headwear, my mother and I made the choice to get him to the hospital.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at Christmas spirit in every direction, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Positive medical attendants, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that lovely local expression so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program 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 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 subsequently contracted DVT. And, even if that particular Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or contains some artistic license, I couldn’t possibly comment, but its annual retelling has done no damage to my pride. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
