I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from unwell to barely responsive during the journey.

This individual has long been known as a larger than life personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. At family parties, he is the person gossiping about the most recent controversy to catch up with a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.

It was common for us to pass the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. Yet, on a particular Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.

The Day Progressed

The hours went by, however, the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

Therefore, before I could even put on a festive hat, we resolved to get him to the hospital.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Worrying Turn

By the time we got there, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air.

Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer all around, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on bedside tables.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were moving busily and using that great term of endearment so particular to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

When visiting hours were over, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and Christmas telly. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as a local version of the board game.

By then it was quite late, and snow was falling, and I remember feeling deflated – did we lose the holiday?

Recovery and Retrospection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

If that is completely accurate, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year 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”.