It was an emotional reunion in Brooklyn: a man met the firefighter who saved him when he was just a young boy two decades ago. NY1's Jeanine Ramirez filed the following report.
It's been 20 years since these two last came face to face.
Arif Wedderburn was 3 years old when firefighter Erik Weiner pulled his near-lifeless body from a raging fire.
"Mr. Weiner, I'm really trying my best right now not to cry right now," Wedderburn said. "This is monumental. This doesn't get to happen often. And I just honestly want to say thank you."
Wedderburn, who now lives in Baltimore, says he's been dreaming of this reunion for years.
It was on May 8, 1996 when a fire broke out in his Brownsville apartment. Firefighters found his older sister dangling from a window.
"She was at the window. I put the mask on her. Next thing I know, she said, 'My brother is in there,'" Weiner said.
Though just a toddler, Wedderburn remembers being trapped.
"When I woke up, the carpet was just engulfed in fire. I was alarmed. I started to cry. I didn't know what to do," Wedderburn said. "Got into the living room and stopped, dropped and rolled, and kept doing that until I was unconscious."
Weiner battled smoke, flames and searing heat to find the boy.
"First pass I made, I didn't find him. Second pass, I still didn't find him. Things weren't going our way," Weiner said. "But the last one, I remember seeing him on the ground, and I figured the first thing he needed was my mask. I put it on him."
Safely outside, Wedderburn was resuscitated. Weiner was hospitalized for second-degree burns and cuts to his eye.
Back in 1996, after returning to the firehouse, Weiner said, "I was just happy I was there. Everything worked out good, and I was in the right place at the right time."
But Wedderburn and his mother say Weiner's actions were much more than that.
"I was brought back for a reason," Arif Wedderburn said. "He was an angel sent. He was a complete angel sent."
"You tore the oxygen mask from your face and placed it on the face of my son. I believe it was in that moment, his life was saved," said Ivion Wedderburn, Arif Wedderburn's mother.
Ivion Wedderburn wrote a thank-you note after the fire. On Thursday, she finally had a chance to give it to Weiner, the now-retired hero who saved her family 20 years ago.