Day in and day out, paramedics tend to the wounded and drop them off at the emergency room. Rarely do they get the chance to learn of their patient’s outcome, to see if they survived. Some emergency workers say it’s a thankless job. But on Tuesday, two Charlotte paramedics said they received all the thanks they’ll ever need.

It started back in August of 2006 when Ahmesha Jenkins was walking down Albemarle Road, near Eastland Mall. She was approached by Kyeem Best, her former boyfriend and father of her newborn baby girl.  Police said Best shot Ahmesha once in the chest. She fell to the ground andpolice say Best shot her twice more and left her for dead.

Less than two minutes after the 911 call came into dispatchers, paramedics Jay Lyons and Randy Burch were on the scene. Many who witnessed the shooting didn’t think Ahmesha would survive. Lyons and Burch worked as hard and as fast as they could to change that.

“When we got on the scene, she was flat on her back, bleeding to death, she was taking her last few breaths,” said Lyons, one of the paramedics who treated Ahmesha that day.

Lyons said he and his partner always wondered what happened to her, if she pulled through surgery. After eight months, Tuesday morning they finally got their answer. They were reunited with Ahmesha at her home.

“You are a fighter, we will say that for sure,” said Randy Burch.

“You surprised us, you were trying to breath on your own,” said Lyons.

Ahmesha thanked both men in front a crowd of onlookers.

“They are my angels, I love them,” said Jenkins.

She also had a lot of questions because she doesn’t remember that day. Her first memory is waking up in the hospital.

For Burch and Lyons, the reunion is surreal. They said they weren’t even assigned to the 911 call that day but they happened to be just a minute and a half away from the scene so they decided to go.

“Today, the first time I saw her smile; it put a spark in my heart. I mean she is smiling, she is breathing,” Lyons said with tears in his eyes.

Ahmesah, 20, is now paralyzed from the neck down but points to her little girl as her inspiration to keep going.

“She is the reason I fight,” she said.

It’s the same reason Lyons and Burch are thankful to have been in the right place at the right time.

“She gets to see her daughter grow up and she gets to see her mom. She doesn’t have to be without a mom,” said Lyons.

Kyeem Best remains behind bars. As for Ahmesha, she went back to the hospital Tuesday to have her feeding tube and tracheotomy removed. She will recover there for the next few days.