🔗 Share this article I Took a Family Friend to A&E – and his condition shifted from unwell to barely responsive during the journey. He has always been a man of a larger than life personality. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person gossiping about the latest scandal to befall a member of parliament, or entertaining us with stories of the outrageous philandering of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years. Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell. The Day Progressed The hours went by, however, the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed. So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room. We thought about calling an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day? A Deteriorating Condition By the time we got there, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of clinical cuisine and atmosphere permeated the space. The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands. Cheerful nurses, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that great term of endearment so unique to the area: “duck”. A Subdued Return Home Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to cold bread sauce and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly. It was already late, and snowing, and I remember experiencing a letdown – was Christmas effectively over for us? 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 definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.