🔗 Share this article I Took a Close Friend of the Family to A&E – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious during the journey. This individual has long been known as a larger than life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. At family parties, he’s the one chatting about the most recent controversy to befall a local MP, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering 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. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. He was treated at the hospital and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but appearing more and more unwell. As Time Passed 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 tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage. So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital. We thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day? A Deteriorating Condition Upon our arrival, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind was noticeable. What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables. Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”. A Subdued Return Home After our time at the hospital concluded, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and Christmas telly. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly. By then it was quite late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas? The Aftermath and the Story Even though he ultimately healed, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, 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 am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year has done no damage to my pride. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.