From Boston and New York:
February 1, 2017
On the day of the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, long-distance runner Roseann Sdoia was hanging out on the sidelines as a spectator when the bombs went off. Mike Materia, a firefighter on the scene, came to her aid and stuck by her side as she was rushed to the hospital. While looking at her blown-up leg, Sdoia asked Materia if she was going to die. Almost 4 years later, the two are now engaged, reports the New York Post.
Naturally, the moment didn’t feel romantic to Sdoia at the time, but when Materia visited her a couple days after the incident, her mother took note of his charm. “In the hospital, my mom tried to set me up with him,” Sdoia told the New York Post. “She was like, ‘Oh, did you see that firefighter? He’s so cute.’ And I was like, ‘Mom, I just got blown up.’”
Sdoia lost a good portion of her right leg after the bombing, but as she recovered in the hospital, Materia continued to visit her. He looked for a prosthetist and literally helped her get back on her feet, Sdoia explained. He was there to comfort her and help her recover for a couple of months before they went on their first date.
Last month, Materia popped the question with the help of their dog, Sal, who was wearing an engraved dog tag that read: “Mike wants to know… if you’ll marry him.”
The two are set to tie the knot this fall. “I do feel that, in a sense, some things happen for a reason,” Sdoia said. …
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