In September, comedian Drew Lynch was in the middle of a stand-up routine in Spokane, Washington when an audience member suddenly collapsed from a heart attack. Within seconds, Lynch called for a medic from the stage, as a woman shouted that she was already dialing 911.
Lynch said what happened next “was one of the most powerful examples of community and human connection I’ve ever seen.”
Mr. Wende, the audience member who collapsed, went without a pulse for over five minutes. But the strangers around him didn’t give up.
“Without hesitation, people in the audience began taking turns performing CPR, clearing space for paramedics, and monitoring his vitals,” Lynch recounted in the caption of a TikTok video.
According to the American Heart Association, an estimated 436,000 Americans die from cardiac arrest each year. However, immediate CPR can double or triple the chances of survival.
“With the combined efforts of total strangers, and honestly, by what felt like a miracle that night, he was revived right there in the room,” recalled Lynch, who was driven to tears by the experience. “The entire audience came together in that moment — no egos, no identities, no division — just one goal: saving a life.”
The next day, Lynch visited Wende in the hospital so that he could “finish the show for him.”
“Getting to laugh and share stories with his family for hours in the hospital was the reminder I needed of why comedy is so needed — especially in times when the world feels so torn apart,” Lynch wrote.
Before he moved on to the next leg of his comedy tour, Lynch thanked “the people of Spokane, the brave medical professionals, and the Wende family for bringing this man into my life and reminding me just how special community can be.”
Roughly four months later, on January 9, Lynch posted an emotional update to Wende’s story on TikTok.
“This one is tough,” he wrote. “As some of you know, a man survived a heart attack at one of my shows a few months ago. That man was Mr. Wende.”
“I got to know Mr. Wende and his family after his incident, and he was truly one of the most gentle, humble, and honorable human beings I’ve ever met,” Lynch continued in the post. “A speech therapist for over 50 years. A father and grandfather. A widower still committed to his wife. His faith and his family meant the world to him. But he never prioritized one person over another.”
According to his family, “everybody is a friend he hasn’t met yet.”
“He was a Labrador Retriever in every sense of the word. I got to visit him in Spokane with some of my closest friends last week — one final time. And we all found it remarkable the look of pure joy he always had at the simplest of things — a stranger, a hand tattoo, Gonzaga basketball — and it makes you wonder how someone with such a beautiful heart could have ever experienced it being attacked in the first place.”
“A man who couldn’t walk was showing us the path. Even in pain, there was love. I will miss our text updates. I will miss our silly banter. I will miss our friendship.”
“Rest easy FGF,” he signed, “Your foster grandson, Drew.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2025 Helpers Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image via Drew Lynch
