🔗 Share this article

Our family friend has always been a larger than life character. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person gossiping about the most recent controversy to involve a regional politician, 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, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, whisky in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.

The Morning Rolled On

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but his appearance suggested otherwise. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

So, before I’d so much as put on a festive hat, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

Upon our arrival, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air was noticeable.

What was distinct, however, was the mood. One could see valiant efforts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.

Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that great term of endearment so particular to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

After our time at the hospital concluded, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and Christmas telly. We saw a lighthearted program on television, likely a mystery drama, and played something even dafter, such as a local version of the board game.

It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?

Recovery and Retrospection

While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get DVT. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or contains some artistic license, I couldn’t possibly comment, but the story’s yearly repetition has done no damage to my pride. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.