A few hours after he was born, Matthew was abandoned.
But they didn’t leave him with a stranger or put him up for adoption – he was simply buried alive.
Two decades ago, someone dug an improvised grave on a hiking route in Altadena, California. The reason? To bury a helpless child.
The unknown man or woman abandoned the baby in a small hole and covered it with earth and stones.
In 1998, Azita Milanian went running with her dogs on the same hiking route shortly after Matthew was left there to die.
One of her dogs smelled something and started sniffing the way.
As Azita approached the area where her dog had led her, she thought she would find a little animal. But when she looked closely, she felt a chill all over her body.
Azita could not believe her eyes when she saw two little legs sticking out of the ground.
She immediately began digging in the ground to get the boy out. She had no idea if he was alive at all.
“I just screamed, there was a blue towel and a baby wrapped inside”, Azita said.
Because she had no mobile phone reception, she couldn’t call the police. All that frightened Azita could do was run to the nearest road to wave to the passing cars.
A driver stopped and immediately drove them to the nearest police station. Where Azita stayed with Matthew and washed him gently and consoled him.
It turns out that sometimes all we need is human contact.
“He grabbed my hand and stopped crying, it was very emotional”, recalls Azita.
At the same time, Azita simply could not understand what sick person could do this. The umbilical cord was still attached to the little baby.
Fortunately, help arrived quickly and after receiving medical treatment, Matthew survived.
The little warrior was eventually adopted by a wonderful family, and his biological mother was never found or arrested.
By the time he was older, Matthew didn’t know what had happened to him when he was a baby. But one day he and his grandmother drove together when she asked him if anyone had told him the truth.
“She told me the whole story and I didn’t believe what I was hearing, so I went home and learned a bit, I told everyone and I felt pretty cool that I survived the impossible”, Matthew said.
Matthew also decided to look for the angel who saved him and to thank her personally for what she did. She could ignore her dog and keep running – but she did not, and it saved his life.
20 years later ..
Even if Azita tried to find out for herself what had happened to Matthew, it was hard. When he was adopted, she discovered she had no way of contacting his family.
She was sad but comforted that somewhere, there was a family that loved him and would do everything for him.
In the end, the celebrity Ryan Seacrest was the one who helped Matthew meet Azita. He invited the two of them to his studio and filmed the meeting.
Azita said she has been waiting to see him for 20 years.
“You are exactly as I imagined you would be, I guessed your size, everything, thank you for entering my life, you changed them, I knew we would meet again. The day I met him, he confirmed my fate. God brought us together for a greater cause”.
The two plan to keep in touch. Watch their beautiful and exciting reunion in the video below: