10-year-old boy severely burned in Northeast Philadelphia plane crash reunites with bystander who saved him

Ramesses Dreuitt Vazquez scooted his wheelchair on a Mount Airy playground, pressing the ground with his sneakers to approach the man credited with saving his life.

Caseem Wongus had last seen the child staggering from a flaming car after a medical jet torpedoed onto Cottman Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia, blasting wreckage into the neighborhood around the Roosevelt Mall and killing all six people onboard.

Now the 10-year-old Philadelphia boy smiled through his scars, reaching his arm out to greet Wongus, who bent down and hugged him.

Wongus, 26, was nervous to see Ramesses, unsure what to expect. On the night of the Jan. 31 crash, Wongus used his jean jacket to smother flames on Ramesses’ back. He then comforted Ramesses in the back seat of a police cruiser as they raced to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. The child’s clothes had burned away; his sneakers had melted to his feet from the heat.

In the 10 months afterward, Ramesses fought for his life at a Boston hospital. He had 42 surgeries for burn wounds that affected 90% of his body, and had fingers and ears amputated. He was moved to a rehabilitation hospital in South Jersey before being released earlier this month.

He reunited with his rescuer on Tuesday night at an event to mark what would have been the 38th birthday of Ramesses’ father, Steven Dreuitt Jr., who died when the car he was driving caught on fire.

Family and friends gathered on the park’s basketball court to release balloons.

Wongus asked Ramesses how he felt about getting swag from the Philadelphia Eagles and Phillies while in the hospital. “I’m really not much of a baseball fan; I’m more of an Eagles fan,” replied Ramesses, wearing a knit Eagles hat.

The boy’s light and casual tone made Wongus smile.

“I’m glad to see him with his family and to see how well he’s doing — seeing him just trying to function as a kid again and scooting around in the wheelchair on the basketball court,“ Wongus said.

The balloon release was organized by Alberta “Amira” Brown, 60, Dreuitt’s mother and Ramesses’ grandmother. During the balloon release, she and Ramesses’ mother thanked Wongus for saving him.

“If it wasn’t for this person here, Ramesses would not be here today,” Brown said, as family and friends applauded.

Brown also asked those in attendance to support her son’s other child, Dominick Goods, an 11th grader at Imhotep Institute Charter High School in East Germantown.

Both grandsons, she said, need the community’s love and support: “I have one that is completely, completely mentally distraught and one is physically distraught.”

Dominick, who is Ramesses’ half brother, lost his father and his 34-year-old mother in the plane crash. Dominique Goods Burke, who was engaged to Dreuitt, was in the car’s passenger’s seat. The Mount Airy couple had picked up Ramesses from his mother’s home in Germantown and then headed to the Roosevelt Mall to run an errand. Goods Burke escaped from the car with severe burns and internal injuries.

Dominick turned 16 two weeks before his mother died in April at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

“I want each and every one of you to imagine what a 15-year-old kid went through that night, being left home alone and waiting for his parents and his brother to come home, and no one ever did,” Brown said.

“Don’t forget my grandson Dominick. I beg of you,” she said.

After watching balloons float skyward amid shouts of “Happy birthday, Steven,” Dominick drifted away from the crowd of about 40 people for a few moments alone.

Ramesses, bundled under a fuzzy white blanket, playfully chased after his mother, Jamie Vazquez Viana, in his wheelchair, teasing about rolling over her feet.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” she said.

She declined to talk to a reporter but has shared some details of her son’s recovery on a GoFundMe page.

“Ramesses is my little warrior who fought death and won, but he now faces a lifetime of reconstruction surgeries, intense therapy, and long-term burn care,” Vazquez Viana wrote.

» READ MORE: The `hero' who saved a 9-year-old boy on fire

Wongus smiled through tears as he watched Ramesses chat with his 12-year-old cousin, Anthony “AJ” Jenkins, about video games. His cousin, who gave him an Xbox game for his birthday in October, asked if he had been playing it.

Ramesses explained why he had not. “I have to sign in and put in my dad’s email and his number and all that, and I don’t have that,” Ramesses told his cousin.

Jenkins, a seventh grader who is one of Brown’s seven grandchildren, said he cried during the balloon release, envisioning his uncle watching them.

“I imagined in my mind that my uncle asked God, `Can I just look down there for a minute?,’ and he sat on the clouds and he watched as his balloons came up to him,” Jenkins said.

Later in the evening, at his grandmother’s house, Dominick lit a candle for his father, while Ramesses looked on.

Jenkins said he again pictured his uncle’s spirit. This time, clasping both his sons’ hands to help them light it.

Jenkins said he is awed by his cousins’ physical and emotional strength. Ramesses “keeps pushing hard” to get stronger, even though his father is gone. Dominick had clung to hope that his mother would survive and was devastated, the cousin said.

“It’s been really hard for him. I couldn’t be that in place. I’d be stuck. I couldn’t be strong enough,” Jenkins said. “They inspire me to be a better person. I want to show my uncle and his two sons that I am working hard for them.”

Before heading over to the playground on Tuesday evening, Dominick gave Ramesses an early Christmas gift.

Ramesses’ eyes grew wide as his mother helped him unfurl tissue paper to reveal a coveted pair of 2025 Air Jordan 8 “Bugs Bunny” Nike sneakers.

“You like them. I can see it on your face,” his mother said.

“I’m gonna hide them,” Ramesses replied. He didn’t want anyone to take them from him.