FBI agent Troy Sowers topped off his career with the most incredible surprise of his life, when a man who he had rescued as a baby 22 years prior walked into the room at his retirement party.
Sowers was a rookie agent when he discovered a 2-day-old baby, Stewart Rembert, in a box next to a restaurant dumpster — the infant had been kidnapped from the hospital by a woman impersonating a nurse and was missing for some 19 hours.
Now a corporal in the United States Marines, Rembert was invited to the gathering by Sowers’ colleagues and duly accepted the honor to send the agent off in style!
“It’s crazy to think that without his efforts, I wouldn’t even be here today,” Rembert told NBC News before embracing his rescuer. “I wouldn’t be a Marine. My family wouldn’t be the same… I’m just super excited and honored to meet this man today.”
Overcome with emotion has recalled that fateful night to a crowd of former colleagues, Sowers remember “pulling a baby out of a box.”
“We knew he had been out there for several hours,” the agent explained. “When I picked him up, he was not crying, but he just nuzzled right into my neck and I knew he was fine.”
Talking to WLVT, Sowers added that it was hard to gather himself as he recalled that emotional day from over two decades ago.
“That was tough, I had to take a couple deep breaths before I started talking,” he said, adding that Rembert showing up was “the perfect bookend” to his time in the FBI.
“I think to end seeing him again it really just puts the final touch to a career,” he said. “[It was] probably one of the best surprises I’ve ever had.”
Agent Sowers had some heartfelt words and a bit of advice for the young man he saved all those years ago:
“I’m really glad what you did with your life. Pass it on, OK?”