🔗 Share this article I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from unwell to scarcely conscious during the journey. He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life figure. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one discussing the most recent controversy to involve a member of parliament, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years. Frequently, we would share Christmas morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. Yet, on a particular Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his 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 appearing more and more unwell. The Morning Rolled On Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful. So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, we resolved to drive him to the emergency room. The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day? A Worrying Turn When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air was noticeable. The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety all around, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds. Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”. A Subdued Return Home After our time at the hospital concluded, we made our way home to chilled holiday sides and holiday television. 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 – had we missed Christmas? Recovery and Retrospection Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed deep vein thrombosis. And, although that holiday does not rank among my favorites, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”. How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling 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”.