CLEVELAND — In a TikTok video now seen by millions of people, Akron mom Asia Davis started a search for the man she says saved her son's life at a Cleveland Monsters hockey game. It didn't take long for them to be reunited — this time for a ceremonial puck drop at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
Davis and her 4-year-old son Nasir were attending the Monsters' home game on Thursday night when Davis said a puck came "straight out of heaven" headed straight towards her son. She says that's when a man sitting next to Nasir intervened and was able to block the puck before it hit the boy.
The moment was captured on camera as she filmed the game.
"And if you know anything about a hockey puck, it's more dense than a baseball," Davis says in the video. "That thing is a flying [traumatic brain injury] ... This dude literally saved my son's life. He prevented a life changing event from happening."
So Davis put out the call to find the man, and the video went viral, wracking up millions of views and nearly 500,000 "likes." More importantly, the man, Andrew Podolak, was identified. And on Saturday, the Monsters brought Davis, Podolak and 4-year-old Nasir back together on the ice for a VIP puck drop ahead of the team's matchup with the Laval Rocket.
Podolake told NBC News it was simply his first instinct to drop the puck.
“It was a crazy experience,” he told NBC.
Davis told NBC News she wanted Podolak to know how grateful she is.
"[Podolak] was like, 'I was meant to be here," Davis says in her original TikTok, "And he was."