Jonathan Bush, the high-octane, no-holds-barred co-founder and CEO of athenahealth, became Johnny-on-the-spot on Wednesday.

While in San Francisco to attend the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Bush took a few minutes to perform CPR on a man he found lying on the sidewalk. The man appeared to not be breathing, possibly suffering from a heart attack, according to an account of the incident published in Bush's hometown newspaper, The Boston Globe.

The incident occurred near the corner of Mission and 1st Street in San Francisco's downtown. According to the Globe, Bush had been to a nearby Walgreens drugstore to buy an ice pack (he recently hurt his knee skiing). He was on his way to a meeting at the J.P. Morgan event when he saw the man lying on the sidewalk, turned him over, saw his face was blue and he seemed to not be breathing. After Bush performed CPR, the man started breathing again.

Bush, who has long been critical of inefficiencies in American healthcare, is quoted by the Globe as saying, "It was like the U.S. healthcare system. Everybody was standing there, nobody was helping."

Long before he and former U.S. CTO Todd Park started athenahealth, Bush worked as an emergency medical technician in New Orleans. He writes about it in his book, Where Does It Hurt?: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Health Care.

[See also: Jonathan Bush on where it hurts most.]

Bush writes in his book that he was looking for a summer job when a family acquaintance told him that, to save lives, the best thing he could do was to work on an ambulance and get to know a crack trauma unit.

That's how Bush ended up that summer working with the trauma unit at Charity Hospital in the Big Easy. He and the crew did save lives, he writes. New Orleans gave him hands-on training in urgent care, "and, just as important, a primer on American society."

A spokeswoman for Bush told Healthcare IT News on Thursday that athenahealth could confirm the event in San Francisco happened, but would not comment at this time because Bush and his staff are still working to understand how the man is doing.

[See also: Newsmaker interview: Jonathan Bush.]