In an emergency, politics takes a back seat. Watch video
Usually the front row of State of the State addresses are reserved for the closest friends of Gov. Chris Christie, not those who want him jailed over Bridgegate.
And yet, perched just a few feet from the governor for most of his speech on Tuesday was one of the governor's most reliable antagonists: Bill Brennan, the citizen activist who's pursuing an official misconduct complaint against Christie, and who is himself running for governor.
Just how did a political arch-foe like Brennan land such a coveted spot? Was it the ultimate in passive aggressive psychological warfare, designed to throw Christie off his game?
But then barely ten minutes into the governor's address, the pastor of Newark's New Hope Baptist Church, Rev. Joe Carter, collapsed.
First lady Mary Pat Christie, seated next to Carter, called out for medical assistance. Several people rushed over, and Carter, 46, was lifted into a back room.
One of those people turned out to be Brennan, who'd been invited to attend the speech as a guest of an friend he declined to name.
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"There was a call for an EMT, and I was a firefighter for 20 years, so without thinking, I rushed over to help Reverend Carter," Brennan recalled on the steps of the Bergen County Courthouse on Wednesday after attending a hearing on whether his official misconduct complaint could proceed.
"When I helped carry him to another room, a doctor came on the scene, and I was no longer necessary. But when I went back into the room, I was trapped next to the governor and his family."
Christie, after asking for a moment of silence and prayer for Carter's safe recuperation, returned to his speech -- now with Brennan mere inches away from him, which the former EMT admitted was "surreal."
On Wednesday, Brennan said he agreed with much of the governor's call for a heightened focus on drug addiction treatment.
"I am not going to say everything he does is bad," he said. "We have a (drug) crisis. We have to do more. But I was not trolling him by sitting next to him. I just got trapped there."
The Auditor heard Wednesday from a volunteer answering the phone in the front office of New Hope Baptist Church that Pastor Carter "is fine."