I Drove a Family Friend to A&E – and he went from unwell to barely responsive during the journey.

This individual has long been known as a truly outsized character. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. At family parties, he is the person chatting about the most recent controversy to involve a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday over the past 40 years.

We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, 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. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.

The Day Progressed

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming as they usually were. He was convinced he was OK but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

Thus, prior to me managing to placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital.

The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

When we finally reached the hospital, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. Other outpatients helped us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. One could see valiant efforts at festive gaiety all around, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds.

Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that lovely local expression so unique to the area: “duck”.

A Subdued Return Home

Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and Christmas telly. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and played something even dafter, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.

It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – did we lose the holiday?

Healing and Reflection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, 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, I am not in a position to judge, but the story’s yearly repetition certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.