Nation of Lifesavers Class: Matthew Lynch
Ten months after learning CPR, he felt confident enough to use it
By Diane Daniel
Most mornings, Matthew Lynch left his house in suburban New Jersey at 5:30 a.m., drove across the Betsy Ross Bridge and reached his office in Philadelphia by 6.
He liked going in that early because traffic was light and parking spots were easy to find. Plus, he could hit the office gym before getting to his desk.
On a chilly Tuesday in April 2025, dawn was breaking as Matthew reached his exit. But traffic was backed up at a particular intersection. He waited through three cycles before finally getting close enough to see the holdup: a stalled SUV.
Most cars buzzed around it. Matthew moved slowly. Peering into the vehicle, he thought he saw people. Were they hurt?
He threw his sedan into park, flipped on his hazard lights and ran to the SUV. He knocked on the driver’s window, then shook the vehicle as hard as he could. No response. All the doors were locked. When he looked in the car, both a male driver and a female passenger were passed out.
“Call 911!” he yelled at a passerby. The man kept walking.
Matthew ran back to his car, grabbed his phone and called himself.
Matthew managed to open the driver’s side door.
The driver was unresponsive and not breathing normally. Matthew knew he needed to start CPR – which he’d learned 10 months earlier during a training session he’d helped organize for a work-sponsored men’s group.
Matthew pushed hard and fast in the center of the man’s chest. He heard air moving through the man’s lungs. Within a minute, the man started gasping for breath.
Then he called out his passenger’s name.
Just as Matthew was leaning over to see if he could help her, first responders arrived. Then he backed away, knowing there was nothing more he could do.
He got back into his car, turned off his hazard lights and waited for the light to turn green again.
A few minutes later, as he drove into a parking garage, Matthew called his parents. He was in tears.
“It was just a lot to take in,” he said. “Mostly I felt an incredible sense of gratitude that I could help someone.”
Matthew is such a strong admirer of the Good Samaritan parable that he’s always on the lookout for the opportunity to help others. They’ve come his way, too. At 10, he successfully saved his younger sister when she was choking on a mint. A lifelong soccer player, he’s always the first one to rush to the aid of an injured teammate or even an opponent.
This, though, was a completely different rush of fear, excitement and other emotions.
He went for a run to clear his head, then went to the gym. But he couldn’t focus. When he got to his office, he sent emails thanking his CPR instructor and the company official who had helped with the training.
That afternoon, Matthew tried to find out what happened to the driver and his passenger. Privacy laws prevented him from getting any information.
As he replayed the events in his mind, he thought of ways he could have moved the man to a hard, flat surface, a more effective way to give CPR. But he consoled himself by remembering that the important thing was that he did something.
“The confidence I felt to act instead of being afraid and doing nothing was really important at that moment,” he said.
Matthew never found out what happened to those people.
But he learned a lot about himself. And about the importance of learning CPR, and the confidence that comes from knowing you could be a lifesaver.
“I quickly realized that the certification was way less important than the actual CPR training,” he said. “Your ability to help in any capacity is better than doing nothing. If I hadn’t done that training, I probably would not have helped.”
