Doctor Saves Driver's Life After Heart Attack In East Boston
BOSTON (CBS) - Last month, while he was out on the road, Dr. Michael Murphy thought he was stuck behind a really bad driver.
But then he saw something happen, and realized the driver in front of him was in real trouble. The doctor rushed in to save that driver's life.
"I just have an angel watching over me," says Matthew O'Connell.
O'Connell got in his car last month and drove from his Winthrop home to East Boston to pay some bills.
"I remember getting in my car and starting out of the parking lot where I live," O'Connell recalls. "After that, it's a blank."
He can't remember any of the two mile drive through busy Bennington Street and Saratoga, eventually on to Boardman Street where a doctor happened to spot him.
"Probably three or four cars ahead of me, I just saw a car the same direction as me come out and come to the curb and just stop," Dr. Murphy said.
Dr. Murphy from the same hometown of Winthrop says it was on a hunch he pulled over to check out O'Connell's car, and found him unconscious.
"I basically kept doing compressions, breathing for him when I sensed he needed it," Dr. Murphy said.
When O'Connell found out it was a Mount Auburn Hospital doctor who saved him, he wanted to track him down. He went to the local fire department and the hospital, but they wouldn't give up the doctor's name..
Days later, O'Connell received a call from the doctor himself, which led to a reunion, and a new friendship based on a frantic few minutes. One life saved. And the doctor says it changed his life too.
"The shifts can be pretty crazy and you can see really dramatic and horrific things but when you have these times of light it can kind of give you a little stimulus to keep going," Dr. Murphy said.
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