Twenty years after being rescued by New York City firefighter Erik Wiener, Arif Wedderburn called him an angel.
The two reunited Thursday at the Brooklyn firehouse that is home to Engine 214 and Ladder 111 in Brooklyn.
Wiener, who retired in 2009, made two daring rescues on May 7, 1996 as fire engulfed an eighth floor apartment in Brooklyn.
Wiener heard screams and found Yanique Livermore, then 16, hanging upside-down outside the window of her apartment. He used a Halligan tool to pull her back inside the building. He continued his searches and found then three-year-old Wedderburn unconscious between a wall and bed.
He sustained second-degree burns to his back and lacerations during the rescue.
“I woke up in the bedroom and the carpet was engulfed in fire. I started to cry, I didn’t know what to do. I tried to save my sister but I couldn’t get to her,” Wedderburn said Thursday. “Firefighter Wiener was an angel, he took me away and brought me out, and brought me back to life. He’s an angel sent from Heaven - him and other firefighters who go out and risk their lives every single day. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for him.”
Wedderburn's family and friends joined him as he said thank you and presented Wiener with a plaque that featured the front page story of the rescue in the New York Daily News.
“I’m not comfortable with being called ‘brave’,” Wiener said. “I don’t think that what I did that night was brave. I was just being a professional. I was a professional Firefighter. It was always an honor to put the uniform on, and it’s still an honor today. I was never an individual. We came, we did what we do, and we left. We did our job.”
“You can see this is a very storied house with a lot of great tradition," First Deputy Fire Commissioner and former Engine 214 captain Robert R. Turner said. "It has always attracted motivated men and women to work here, and Erik is a fine example of what goes on in this firehouse. Everyone in this firehouse is here for the community; it’s their desire to be in a position like Erik, to be able to help.”
He received the department's Walter Scott Medal and was the recipient of Firehouse's Alfred E. Ronaldson Medal in the 1996 Firehoue Heroism and Community Service Awards program.
