Firefighter to Marry Marathon Bombing Survivor He Saved

Roseann Sdoia was a spectator near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013 when the bombs went off. Firefighter Mike Materia was the first responder who came to her aid—and four years later, they're getting married, the New York Post reports. Sdoia's mom actually tried to set the couple up early on, as Materia checked on Sdoia in the hospital. "She was like, 'Oh, did you see that firefighter? He’s so cute.' And I was like, 'Mom, I just got blown up,'" Sdoia says. But as he continued to help her, both emotionally and physically as she had a leg amputated, feelings did in fact develop between the two. They started dating a couple months after the bombing. They got engaged in December, WCVB reports.

Materia proposed on a lookout deck at Nantucket's whaling museum; the couple spent their first Fourth of July weekend on the island in 2013. Materia utilized their dog, Sal, to pop the question: Sal was wearing a dog tag reading, "Mike wants to know ... if you'll marry him." Sdoia, 48, and Materia, 37, are also releasing a book about the bombing in the spring. "I do feel that, in a sense, some things happen for a reason," Sdoia says. Thinking back to the first moments they met, she adds that Materia has already "seen me on my worst day." (More uplifting news stories.)