Hero Who Rescued Abandoned Baby In Cemetery Surprises Her With Reunion 18 Years Later

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One man’s quick thinking saved a newborn baby girl 18 years ago, and led to a very sweet reunion.

In November 1995, Charlie Heflin rescued a newborn baby girl from a cemetery in Champaign, Ill., WFIE reported. Now that little girl is a teenager who’s graduated high school, and she and Heflin have been reunited.

Heflin, who was a volunteer firefighter at the time, happened to be listening to the police scanner when a call came in that there was a baby abandoned under a pine tree at Mt. Hope Cemetery. However, police failed to find the baby there, so Heflin went to another local cemetery on a hunch, according to ABC News. He found the newborn infant just in time, as she wouldn’t have lasted long in the subzero degree weather.

“I heard a little whimper when I got close to the tree,” Heflin told WFIE. “I dug down inside this real huge pine tree and found her.”

That newborn was adopted a week later by Bonnie and Greg James, and named Skyler. Bonnie James tried for years to contact her daughter’s rescuer, and finally found him in time for a surprise reunion at Skyler’s graduation party.

I was totally shocked,” Skyler James told the outlet. “It’s something that I’ve dreamed of since I was a little kid, and it’s amazing.”

The two embraced and Heflin presented the teen with the jacket he wore the night he rescued her.

“It’s very important to me to remind myself that even though I had a rough start in life, I have an amazing life,” Skyler told ABC News. “I wouldn’t change anything for the world.”

Reunions between rescuer and rescued are always heartwarming, especially when many years have passed. In another sweet story, Dave Hickman was recently reunited with Mary Ellen Suey, a woman he rescued in the woods of Indiana nearly 60 years ago.