An Unexpected Trip to A&E
Several years ago I was out celebrating Hogmanay with a few of my mates. There were nine of us in total, three were close mates and the rest more casual acquaintances. We had gathered at Alex's to pre-party a bit and then the plan was to head down to The Street to meet everyone else.

In Orkney, most people under the age of 18 (who are unable to sneak their way into the only club that Kirkwall has) meet in a place in the town centre called 'The Street'. It really is as dull as it sounds. It's just a street about 300 yards long and on Hogmanay about 400 or 500 people turn up to bring the bells in. Once the excitement of the Cathedral's bells chiming has passed, everyone makes their way to any of the numerous house parties that are usually organised afterwards. That was the plan anyway.

The night started innocuously enough. We sat in his house drinking and chatting while watching dvd's and generally just having a normal night in. After a while one of the guys at the house, John, suddenly began giving me dirty looks for no apparent reason. Well, it wasn't for a reason I was aware of anyway. Every so often I'd catch him glaring at me but I ignored him as much as I could. I had known him for several years and he had a reputation for being a bit of a tit when drinking so I decided just to let it go.

A few hours later when we were leaving the house John pulled me up and started arguing with me about something. I can't remember everything he was moaning about but one of the things was that he thought I had stolen his beer. I told him I hadn't but he was adamant I had. I'm not really a confrontational person so I tried my best to get him to leave it be and walk away. After all it was New Year, a time for celebration, and I hadn't actually stolen his beer.

When I thought he had settled down a bit I turned and began to walk away to join my mates who had already started walking down the road. The next thing I felt was a solid thump on the side of my head, causing me to stumble forward a few steps, followed by the sound of glass shattering all around me. When I regained my balance and turned around, John was already running off down an adjacent road.

The next thing I know I'm being dragged back inside the house as I was told there was a lot of blood spilling everywhere. Once in the bathroom this is what I saw in the mirror: (Possibly NSFW)

Image 1

It turns out that John had smashed his beer bottle over my head as I was turning around. The cut on the top of my head was about an inch or so long and there were several more lacerations on my neck and behind my ear. The picture above doesn't show them clearly but you can see a separate trail of blood down my neck.

After this my partying plans unfortunately had to be put on hold as a couple of my mates took me to the hospital to receive treatment. I wasn't too keen on going but luckily my friends had more common sense than I did and took me anyway.

Once we arrived a nurse took me into A&E. She cleaned up all the blood, numbed the area around each of the wounds and stitched me up. It was a long, depressing fourty-five minutes spent lying on a bed, staring at the clock, with absolutely no beer to drink, and I hated every minute of it. After she was done she handed me some bandages and told me to go home to rest. To her credit though, she did an excellent job:

Image 2

I received sixteen stitches in total spreading out across my head and neck and many of the scars are still visible to this day. I made a few more trips to the hospital over the next week to get more bandages and to have the stitches removed. The doctors said that I was lucky more damage hadn't been done to the surrounding tissue and muscles, but there was never any danger to my life apparently.

Say what you want about the NHS, but under some of the circumstances they have to work in, they do a fantastic job taking care of the drunken, reckless idiots like myself who stumble in at god-awful hours needing treatment. I, for one, am certainly glad healthcare is free in this country.

Cheers
( Fat Fred too weird to live, too rare to die, Fri 12 Mar 2010, 0:15, 3 replies)

That looks fucking nasty man
You seemed to take it well to your credit.

Hope you stuck the heid on the guy that did that to you.

I would gladly.

Here's a click.
(Helmut McBucket invites you to pull his finger on, Fri 12 Mar 2010, 1:13, closed)

Fuck!
Put a claim in. Press charges. Fuck him up at a later date.

Or don't rob some other cunts booze!
(The Boy Monders I have ginger bits in my beard., Fri 12 Mar 2010, 9:01, closed)

Yeah I went to the police later that night after I left the hospital. He was arrested the following morning after me and a few of my mates were interviewed. He eventually ended up paying me compensation and had to do some community service as part of his sentence.

Ha we were drinking Millers though, why on earth would I want to steal them?! If it was a Beck's or a Desperados then fair enough.
( Fat Fred too weird to live, too rare to die, Fri 12 Mar 2010, 12:52, closed)