“I was waiting for you. Twenty years,” Azita Milanian said on seeing Matthew Christian Whitaker. “You’re exactly what I’ve imagined. I guessed your size, everything. Thank you for coming into my life, you changed my life. … I knew we were going to connect again. The day [we] met, [you] confirmed my faith. … God brought us together for a purpose.”

Twenty years ago, Whitaker was buried alive just after his birth. In a series of what some might call “coincidences,” Milanian was in the right place at the right time. Twenty years later, the pair recently had an emotional reunion on the radio show On Air With Ryan Seacrest. 

Not Really Coincidences

If every detail hadn’t worked out perfectly on May 16, 1998, Milanian wouldn’t have found the buried-alive baby boy. She was supposed to go to the gym earlier in the day, but didn’t make it until 6:00 p.m. Then a bout of anxiety sent her home. Her friend wanted her to go salsa dancing, but she said no. She felt like she needed to go jogging immediately in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Mountains.

Because a stranger had confronted her about one of her dogs, she decided to park in a different spot than usual. She’d been parking in the same spot for 8 years. That decision led her to a gate that was rarely used.

Milanian was going to run with her dogs for about 20 minutes. She ran for a while, then suddenly felt like someone was choking her. She thought she was going to throw up. On her way back, she heard a noise. Her dogs stood over a spot and wouldn’t move.

“I was saying, ‘Come on, let’s go. What are  you looking at?’ and they didn’t move,” she told Seacrest. “So I went back and I was screaming at them, and there were a bunch of bushes and suddenly [the baby’s] feet came out of the ground in front of my feet.” 

‘You Have to Go Back’

She didn’t recognize them as feet at first. She wasn’t sure what was coming out of the ground, so she took her dogs to the car. “And God told me, ‘You have to go back.’ And I went back without my dogs.” She was standing a few feet away, screaming, “‘God, what is this? It’s like a human baby’s feet.’ And then he started crying.”

She moved the bushes and started digging in the dirt, exposing a towel. She opened the towel and saw the baby. “I saw the umbilical cord attached. I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl. … He was crying. I brought him out and I dug my nails in his nose and his mouth and I started taking the dirt out.” 

Milanian spoke to Whitaker. “All I said to you was, ‘Please don’t die. I will never leave you. I love you.'”

She ran to her car, grabbed her cell phone and called 911. They didn’t let her finish her sentence before they put her on hold. She flagged down a car and asked the driver to call for an ambulance. Because the ambulance service thought the baby was dead, they didn’t arrive for 30 minutes.

“He was so strong,” said Milanian. “He grabbed my wrist like this and he wouldn’t let go of my wrist.” He held her wrist until the ambulance arrived.

She believes that when she felt like she was choking on the running trail was the time Whitaker was being buried.

‘She Didn’t Have to Do That’

Although she wanted to adopt him, she wanted him in a very safe place. All the publicity about her discovering him could lead someone to him. So he was adopted. He grew up not knowing his story until about a year ago. 

Whitaker says he was in the care with his grandmother and she asked him if he knew the true story of how he was found. He said no. “She was like, ‘Legend has it …’ and then she told me the story and I was just in awe and then I went home and did research and then I started telling everyone because I felt so cool that I survived the impossible.”

“I couldn’t be more grateful and overjoyed and appreciative of her,” he said of Milanian. “One, changing her whole schedule; two, going back; three, staying with me and making sure I was going to be alive and taken care of. She didn’t have to do that.”

As they embraced, Whitaker held her tightly. “Thank you, Thank you,” he told her. “You’re an angel.”

Watch the reunion: