🔗 Share this article I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to barely responsive during the journey. He has always been a man of a truly outsized figure. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. At family parties, he would be the one discussing the newest uproar to involve a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club during the last four decades. We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and broke his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and instructed him to avoid flying. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky. The Morning Rolled On The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming like they normally did. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful. Thus, prior to me managing to put on a festive hat, we resolved to take him to A&E. We thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day? A Deteriorating Condition By the time we got there, his state had progressed from peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air was noticeable. Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at Christmas spirit all around, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on bedside tables. Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were moving busily and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”. A Quiet Journey Back After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly. By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – did we lose the holiday? The Aftermath and the Story While our friend did get better in time, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and later developed DVT. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”. Whether that’s strictly true, or contains some artistic license, I am not in a position to judge, but its annual retelling has definitely been good for my self-esteem. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.