How to extract nth paragraphs from content

I have a template file that I want to extract the first two paragraphs from the the post’s content in order to display them in a very specific way (side-by side columns, and i need to apply some specific styles & classes to the first paragraph).

I’ve tried to write a code that would explode my get_the_content on the line-breaks and then every item in my array should be a paragraph. I can break my content into separate paragraphs, but there line-break values stored in my array between paragraphs (presumably marking the line-breaks). I can code a check that would get the first and second paragraph that are not these ‘line-break’ values, but i don’t know what these values are in order to compare them.

Maybe my logic isn’t the best – does someone know how to complete what i’m trying to complete? Basically be able to extract the nth paragraph in my post content.

In case, here is my code:

//$offset : the nth paragraph i want to extract
$content = get_the_content();
	$content = explode("\r", $content);

$j = 0;
for($i = 0; $i < sizeof($content) && $i <= $offset; $i++){
		if(!empty($content[$i])){
			$j++;
		}
	}
echo $content[$j];