🔗 Share this article I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to barely responsive on the way. He has always been a man of a larger than life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to another brandy. At family parties, he is the person chatting about the most recent controversy to involve a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players during the last four decades. We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. Yet, on a particular Christmas, some ten years back, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse. The Day Progressed The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; 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 take him to A&E. We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day? A Worrying Turn By the time we got there, his state had progressed from unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air filled the air. Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, even with the pervasive depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables. Positive medical attendants, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”. Heading Home for Leftovers When visiting hours were over, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and Christmas telly. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a local version of the board game. The hour was already advanced, and snow was falling, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas? Healing and Reflection While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get deep vein thrombosis. And, although that holiday is not my most cherished memory, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”. How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but hearing it told each year has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.