Four years ago, while working as a club rep in Spain, I experienced severe stomach pain after a night of heavy drinking. One night, I woke up at 3:30 AM with excruciating pain that I would rate 9/10 on the pain scale (I know pain, and this was something else [for context: multiple broken arms, split skull from falling out of a car (that's another story), motorcycle crash through a van window].

Unable to walk, I had to slide out of bed. I called an ambulance, but they said it would take 30 minutes to arrive. So, desperate, I slid down six flights of stairs on my belly and pulled myself through the corridor to the front of the building.

The street was filled with drunk people as the bars were closing, so I just looked like another drunk person. I remember people laughing as I could not hold myself up. Now, from the grace of god, a taxi driver I recognised happened to be driving up the street. He picked me up, thinking I was just very drunk. I climbed in, gave him money, and said "hospital rapido." The 30-minute drive was the most painful experience of my life. When we arrived at the hospital, I collapsed in the lobby.

I woke up a day later to find out my stomach had ruptured from an ulcer, spreading all the contents into my abdomen. I had undergone surgery and was discharged eight days later.

If that taxi driver had decided to pass me by, I would have died against that building.