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Most drivers get a sinking feeling when their cars clunk into crater-like potholes.

But one pothole did a passenger a favor when the ambulance he was in struck it, according to first responders.

Members of the Gretna Volunteer Fire Department on Monday were taking a 59-year-old man suffering chest pain to the hospital, a Sarpy County 911 dispatcher said.

The patient also had an abnormally high heart rate. While en route to Lakeside Hospital, the ambulance hit a pothole. The jolt returned the patient’s heart rate to normal, said Gretna Fire Chief Rod Buethe.

A tweet describing the dispatch report got a lot of attention on social media and had people wondering: Is that even possible?

CHI Health emergency physician Dr. Peter Daher says yes. Although he had never heard of a pothole doing the trick.

“That’s a new one for the books, I guess,” he said.

Daher, who wasn’t involved in the pothole case, said the patient may have had supraventricular tachycardia. It’s a rapid heart rate that can be caused by a faulty electrical system in the heart, medication, stimulants, excessive caffeine or thyroid disease.