When she realized the man was not breathing and did not have a pulse, she began to perform CPR and called for help.

The man collapsed on the Green Line platform just before 11 a.m., said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo. A nearby passenger, a physician’s assistant at CHA Cambridge Hospital, immediately ran over to help.

A man was revived after collapsing at Government Center Station Thursday morning when several MBTA employees and a passenger rushed to his aid.

Kevin O’Brien, an MBTA electrician, dropped the electrical work he was doing and ran to find the man lying unresponsive on the ground.


“He was blue,” O’Brien said in an interview. “I knew that this was somebody’s father, somebody’s grandfather.”

O’Brien worked with his colleagues — electricians Ed Reynolds and Richard Ryan, and Green Line inspectors Michael Demetrio and Stephen Nadolna — to revive the man while they waited for EMTs to arrive.

Demetrio and Nadolna grabbed an automatic external defibrillator, kept in each MBTA station, while O’Brien, Reynolds, and Ryan continued CPR. Gradually, the man began to breathe, and by the time EMTs arrived, he was regaining consciousness.

“The training just took over, and we didn’t miss a beat,” O’Brien said. “We were not going to stop until EMS arrived.”

The man was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is in stable condition.

Felicia Gans can be reached at felicia.gans@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @FeliciaGans.