I Drove 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 truly outsized figure. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he’s the one discussing the newest uproar to involve a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club over the past 40 years.

It was common for us to pass Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.

As Time Passed

Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

So, before I’d so much as put on a festive hat, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

By the time we got there, he’d gone from unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit all around, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on tables next to the beds.

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”.

A Quiet Journey Back

When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to chilled holiday sides and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.

By then it was quite late, and snow was falling, and I remember feeling deflated – was Christmas effectively over for us?

Healing and Reflection

Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted 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”.

How factual that statement is, or contains some artistic license, I couldn’t possibly comment, but the story’s yearly repetition has done no damage to my pride. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.