In 1998, he helped save her after a devastating fire. In 2016, he watched her graduate from college

…about two years ago, [she] got in touch with the retired Hartford police detective.

“She started to reach out to me and sent me an email,” he said. “I think she Facebook-stalked me, is what she calls it.”

“Honestly, a lump came in my throat,” [he] said, describing how he felt when he received the first message from [her]. “It was kind of cool, you know, that somebody would even remember you from that long ago. I mean, I always remembered her. There’s a picture on my desk that her mom gave me a year or two after [on] one of her birthdays.”