I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to barely responsive during the journey.
Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and never one to refuse to another brandy. At family parties, he’s the one discussing the newest uproar to catch up with a local MP, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.
It was common for us to pass the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Morning Rolled On
The hours went by, however, the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Thus, prior to me managing to put on a festive hat, we resolved to drive him to the emergency room.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Deteriorating Condition
Upon our arrival, 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 hospital food and wind filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer in every direction, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and holiday television. We viewed something silly 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 snow was falling, and I remember experiencing a letdown – was Christmas effectively over for us?
The Aftermath and the Story
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed DVT. 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 involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but hearing it told each year 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”.
