A 59 year-old man from Gretna, Nebraska is lucky to be alive after the ambulance rushing him to the hospital hit a massive pothole, stabilizing his dangerously fast heartbeat in the process.

On April 15, the unnamed man’s heart started racing to 200 beats per minute, which is way above the average adult heart rate of 60 to 100 beats per minute. Gretna Fire and Rescue loaded him into the ambulance and began speeding him 20 minutes and seven miles to the emergency room.

When they hit the pothole, the entire ambulance jumped, which served to jolt the man’s heart rate back to normal like an electric shock.

“Gretna Rescue enroute Lakeside Hospital with a patient with a heart rate of over 200 bpm,” the scanner tweeted. “Gretna now calling them back to advise they struck a large pothole enroute which converted the patients heart to a normal rate!”

Gretna Rescue enroute Lakeside Hospital with a patient with a heart rate of over 200 bpm. Gretna now calling them back to advise they struck a large pothole enroute which converted the patients heart to a normal rate! #OmahaScanner

— Omaha Scanner (@omaha_scanner) April 15, 2019

“It’s rare, but it’s a well-described phenomenon,” Dr. Andrew Goldsweig, of Nebraska Medicine, said of what happened. “One way to treat (a rapid heartbeat) is with an electrical shock. Classically, you’ll see it on television, the paddles, (someone saying) ‘Clear’ and a big jolt. Turns out, you can do that with a pothole.”

Goldsweig went on to say that this has actually happened before, citing a case from the late 1970s in which a patient was jolted into a normal heart rate by a speed bump.

Hospital officials said that the patient is expected to make a full recovery, and he will likely be feeling thankful to the big pothole for many years to come! Find out more about this in the video below.

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