I Drove a Family Friend 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. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. At family parties, he would be the one chatting about the most recent controversy to befall a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday over the past 40 years.
Frequently, we would share 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 planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
Time passed, yet the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.
Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at festive gaiety all around, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; decorations dangled from IV poles and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.
Cheerful nurses, 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
Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to cold bread sauce and Christmas telly. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a local version of the board game.
It was already late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?
Recovery and Retrospection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted deep vein thrombosis. And, even if that particular Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
