You know the world is a strange place. On the 18th of February 2010, I stayed at the Galway Travelodge with my 5 children and my wife. He was booked to speak at the opening of Atlanticside college in Bundorren in Co Donegal, Ireland, next Saturday. So I decided to take the wife and kids for a few days. Since it is a trip of more than five hours, we decided to stop the trip in Galway because it is a nice city.

We arrived and went out to eat as usual, we went to a nice Italian restaurant so the kids could have pizza, we were all in high spirits. Return to the hotel around 10 pm. The older children had the room across the hall and we were in our room with the younger ones, the joy of traveling with 5 children. Anyway, I was pretty tired so I fell asleep while the kids were watching TV. Around 12:30 p.m. I was woken up by screams.

I assumed it was some teenagers playing but it happened again. It was a terrified scream, so I jumped out of bed. My eldest son called me on my cell phone just as he was opening the door and I told him I was going to take a look. To be honest I assumed it was a young couple arguing and worst case scenario I would have to slap some guy in the face to get back to sleep. I was not prepared at all for what I saw. My oldest son and I went up the hall to see what the hell was going on.

As we turned the corner of the corridor we saw a crowd of people. There was a lot of confusion, I asked a lady what was happening, she said ‘a young man collapsed on the ground, he has white foam from his mouth’. “So being me, I walked into the room and I saw a young lady with a towel and she was frantic. I saw a naked young man lying on the bathroom floor and the girl in the towel was yelling, ‘he hit his head, he hit his head.’ Next to the boy is a girl and she has him in the recovery position, there is someone else but I ask the girl in the bathroom what is wrong. She says the young man was brushing his teeth and collapsed.

At this point and to my embarrassment I start to think, Ok, this guy has taken some drugs. He couldn’t have been further from the truth. So I go up to the girl in the towel and say ‘did you call an ambulance?’ She partially yelled ‘I don’t know, I don’t know’. So I went out to the crowd and asked them. They told me that he had been called. I go back to the bathroom, the girl is talking to the young boy’ saying ‘wake up Matt, wake up Matt’. I told him you have to get dressed so you can go in the ambulance. When she got dressed as her I asked her if there was anyone else with her, she said she had two friends in the hotel so I sent her and my son to look for them.

I went back to the bathroom and when I entered I saw two toothbrushes on the floor. Then he checked in, the white stuff around his mouth was toothpaste. He literally collapsed while she was brushing her teeth. More or less at this point, two of his friends arrived, a boy named Nick, he told me that the boy’s name was Matt, he was 29 years old and they were going to put a new valve in his heart on March 16. My own heart sank at this point, there was confusion everywhere. His girlfriend was on her knees talking to Matt, saying ‘come on matt wake up, come on matt wake up. His other friend was talking to a doctor on the phone and he told us not to do anything. One of the ladies outside picked up the phone and yelled ‘just send the ambulance now’

So I went downstairs to talk to the doorman to see what the update was on the ambulance arriving, because I had just checked Matt’s pulse, it was fast but very weak. The doorman said he didn’t know so I dialed 999 myself. I explained to the girl on the line what was going on, she connected me to the ambulance service and told the women ‘look, this guy doesn’t going to make it’, I gave her the information about Matt and she told me that a doctor was on the way.

I ran upstairs, on the way another girl said she knew CPR so I said common. They still have Matt in recovery position, so I checked his pulse again, nothing. Jesus, I said we need to help him Now! so her friend told the doctor over the phone what was happening at that moment. The doctor instructed us to breathe into her mouth, two breaths and pump her heart 30 times. To his credit, the two girls went to work immediately. Two breaths, 30 pumps and again. The girl who was pumping his chest and who had been with him since before I arrived was very tired and emotionally drained, so I said look, let me take over. This was now around 15 minutes after I first entered the room. So we continue 2 breaths, 30 pumps and so on. How long we were there I don’t know. Matt’s girlfriend and friends rotated talking to him, I talked to him saying ‘come on Matt wake up your girlfriend is fine with you kissing other girls’ stuff.

We kept going and finally in what seemed like forever a doctor arrived. He asked me how long it’s been like this, I told him about 20 minutes, if not more. He asked to clear the room, I did. His friends are crying and trying to be optimistic, ‘he will be fine’. He hoped they were right, but he didn’t believe it. While we were helping him he had no pulse. Then the ambulance team arrives. I’m a porter, I let the ambulance people do their job. The hotel manager comes a young girl, I think Polish. She is lost. I ask him to bring everyone a few drinks. She will keep people busy. I remember when my own sister died, she was 30 and she died of cancer, that the main thing I felt was that I was useless, so keep people as busy as possible. It’s amazing how stupid little things can distract your mind.

I ask Nick his name and why they were in the UK. He tells me that they got married and explains that Nick had been very careful about his lifestyle because of his upcoming operation. He tells me how they planned to go skiing after Nick recovered from the operation. I can see from his girlfriend and his friends that Matt is deeply loved. One of the ambulance crew asks me if I’m with Matt, I told him that he was just a guest at the hotel, I explained who was with him and that they were outside by the stairs. At this stage I realize for the first time that my 16 year old has been there the whole time. I asked him to go back to the room and he told me that he would stay. I was so proud of my young man that night and I thought of Matt’s poor parents. He had told his girlfriend not to call them until she knew something, he was thinking Christ, he hoped he had made the right decision. There’s nothing they can do now, it’s 1:30 in the morning. Also, she (I never got the poor girl’s name) is in no shape to do anything.

The front door is partially open as it is stuck on the bathroom door to keep it open. What I hear from people trying to save Matt is not good. They work for 20 minutes, no response. Now there’s a problem: they can’t get a stretcher up for him, so they decided to wrap him in a sheet and we’ll carry him down the stairs. Nowadays we allow things to be built where you can’t get a stretcher, stupid is the only word. The ambulance lady asked me to take Matt’s girlfriend and friends into a room so they wouldn’t see that he had been moved. The girl who was the first to appear, I ask her and her boyfriend to take them to her room. I have to say that in my life I have met some incredibly strong people in my life, but the two young women I was in the bathroom with that night were incredible. I really respect the courage, care and love that you showed that night. Actually, the girl in the room when I arrived was so sweet that I thought she was friends with Matt, only later did I find out that she just reacted like me.

As soon as Matt’s girlfriend and friends entered the room, we carefully lowered Matt down the stairs. They put him in the ambulance, I asked if his girlfriend could go with them, they told me better not. So I asked the manager to drop them off at the hospital. Matt’s girlfriend came down first, so I told her that she would go with the manager and take them to the car. I then pulled Nick aside and told him the doctor had told me it was a one in a million chance that Matt would survive, I think to be fair the non-emergency doctor was called by one of the guests of the hotel. He didn’t want to be the one to say that Matt was dead. Everyone left. (It wouldn’t be until we met the manager as we were leaving to check out, that our worst fears were concerned. The manager told us that the people at the hospital said there was nothing anyone could have done to save Matt that night.)

I spoke briefly to some of the people, told the two girls they were amazing, and returned with my oldest daughter to my wife and the rest of my children. I told them it didn’t look good and went to the bathroom and cried. I couldn’t understand it, I’m a rational man. I had never met Matt, never had a conversation or a pint with him, but I felt like someone in my family had passed away.

I still don’t get it, but I feel the loss and so does my son. I have to be honest, I didn’t know whether to write this or not, but as a parent, God forbid, if he was one of my own, I would like to know what happened and if my son left this world. he loved them. That is the reason why I write this. Although most people like me have never met Matt, he was prayed for, cared for and cared for in the most loving way I have ever witnessed. In this world today where we hear that people don’t care anymore, that’s not what I witnessed that night.

There was more love in that bathroom than I have ever seen. Every single person there wanted Matt to get through, talked to him, fought to stay alive, and was really sad when he passed away. To the point where most didn’t give up at all. We did everything we could to keep him alive and I’m deeply sorry we couldn’t.
So how am I supposed to feel? Logic says that I saw a stranger leave this world. My spirit tells me that I lost a friend. A man whose life was short lived but loved by people he knew and some people he never met. What an amazing person he must have been.

To his girlfriend, friends and family, you have the thoughts, love and care of everyone who was at the Travelodge in Galway that night.

Matt, you may be deceased, but you will not be forgotten.

rest in peace matt