Portland’s Happy Gilmore Doesn’t Swing a Golf Club—He Saves Lives

Matt “Happy” Gilmore spent two decades serving as an EMT for Nashville’s Metro Fire Department. Retirement hasn’t slowed his heroic instincts. Just last week, he saved the life of a Portland cyclist.

That morning, Matt had dropped his kids off at school and was heading to his favorite lake spot, taking a different route than usual. Along the way, he spotted a bicycle overturned on the side of the road. He pulled his truck over to investigate.

In the ditch, Matt saw a man lying still. “It looked like he had wrecked his bike,” Matt recalls. “He was tracking me with his eyes but not moving.” Suspecting a head injury, Matt quickly assessed the situation—drawing on the training from his 20 years in emergency response.

Finding identification, he addressed the man by name: “I need you to talk to me.” His breathing was shallow, his pulse barely detectable.

By then, a passerby had stopped to help and grabbed Matt’s phone from the truck to call 911. Moments later, the injured man began “guppy breathing”—agonal breaths that signaled his heart had stopped.

Matt immediately began CPR. After one round, still no pulse. He started a second round. “He gasped and started moaning at that point,” Matt says. The man’s pulse returned.

Portland police soon arrived and asked Matt who he was. “My friends call me Happy,” he told them.

The man, who had a pacemaker, later told police he had a history of kidney and heart problems. His last memory before the incident was getting off his bike.

When the ambulance arrived to transport him to the hospital, his bike and belongings were left behind. Knowing they wouldn’t fit in a patrol car, Matt offered to deliver them to the man’s home.

“This was divine intervention,” Matt reflects. “It was not that man’s time to die. God has a plan.” By taking a road he rarely traveled and using skills honed over a lifetime, Matt became part of that plan.

“True saves are so rare and precious,” he says. “Once you get to the point of doing CPR, that’s usually it.”

For Matt, the blessing went both ways: “Maybe he’ll be able to bless someone else as much as being part of his life has blessed me.”

He’s quick to shift the spotlight: “The true heroes are my wife and kids. They sacrificed every day for me to have the career I did,”—the same career that equipped him to save a stranger’s life.

Do you feel the nudge in your heart? Thank a First Responder. Thank the families who support them behind the scenes. And maybe sign up for a CPR class—you never know when the road you’re on might lead you to someone who needs you.

Check out CPR training options with TriStar and Highpoint Health.