A B.C. man who was abandoned as a newborn has been reunited 28 years later with the two people who found him under a porch in New Westminster and saved his life.

"It felt like they were a couple of friends that I could share a couple of pints with. There was just a sense of comfortableness there," Thomas Pearson said Tuesday as he met with the men who rescued him when they were boys.

Thomas Pearson, centre, meets the two men who saved his life in 1978: Walter Fabien, left, and Remo Pastro. They found Pearson, who was only a day or two old, under the porch of an abandoned home.
(CBC)

Pearson had been trying for the past 1½ years to locate Remo Pastro and Walter Fabien, saying he was looking for meaning in his life and just had to meet the two.

"What meeting Walter and Remo has brought me, you know, is basically, almost I could let go a part of that search," said Pearson, who is now a master's student in psychology.

"I think really my goal throughout all this process is to find closure."

Thought hidden baby was a cat

On September 1978, in a working neighbourhood of New Westminster, a then 10-year-old Pastro and 11-year-old Fabien were playing nearby when they heard what they thought was a cat meowing from a porch of an abandoned home.

When they looked under the porch, they found a very wet white sheet wrapped into a ball. They unwrapped it and discovered a tiny baby who was only a day or two old.

The boys brought the baby home and he was later taken to the hospital. Doctors at the time said Pearson would've died had he not been discovered.

Pearson was later adopted by a family from Prince George, B.C., and spent much of his life wondering about the mother who abandoned him and the kids who found him.

Rescuers wondered about boy's fate

Pastro and Fabien said they also wondered what happened to the baby they had rescued.

"Every time Walter and I would get together, we'd talk about it and thought about this day happening, one day it will happen, and today it's finally here," Pastro said.

"It was a blessing for me to finally see him in person and I'm thankful for that," Fabien said.

Pearson contacted the New Westminster Police about 18 months ago to try and locate the two and arrange for a reunion.

Police officer's diligence pays off

After much searching, Lisa Mitchell, a freedom of information officer with the New Westminster Police, found the names of the two boys and contacted them to see whether they would be willing to meet with Pearson.

Police officer 'persisted and kept digging. Finally, in the last box stuffed into a corner, was the microfiche file.'-Staff Sgt. Casey Dehaas

"She searched for about two months and was told she was wasting too much time looking for this file," Staff Sgt. Casey Dehaas told the Vancouver Sun.

"But she persisted and kept digging. Finally, in the last box stuffed into a corner, was the microfiche file."

The police were never able to trace the baby's mother or father despite putting out appeals at the time.