I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to barely responsive on the way.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized personality. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. At family parties, he’s the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to involve a member of parliament, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.
It was common for us to pass Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, some ten years back, when he was planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and broke 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 Day Progressed
The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, we resolved to take him to A&E.
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
Upon our arrival, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air filled the air.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety all around, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Positive medical attendants, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
By then it was quite late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?
The Aftermath and the Story
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or a little bit of dramatic licence, I couldn’t possibly comment, 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”.
