CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS — A teen who placed the only 9-1-1 call after a pickup fatally struck a 6-year-old said the boy is his guardian angel during a tearful first meeting with his family Wednesday.

Jeremiah Ramirez and his mother were headed to a basketball game Feb. 15 when Jeremiah, looking outside the back seat window, saw a pickup back up over Gregorio Martinez on the 1400 block of Devon Drive.

Jeremiah immediately called 9-1-1, his mother Juanita Contreras said, and they turned around to help the family.

“At first I though it wasn’t real,” Jeremiah said.

Corpus Christi police recognized Jeremiah Wednesday, naming him the police department’s first “9-1-1 Hero.”

“We want to recognize Jeremiah as a good example of why we teach our children to operate 9-1-1,” Senior Officer Kirk Stowers said during the presentation.

Robert Gomez, the call taker who answered Jeremiah’s 9-1-1 call, praised the teen for his maturity and composure.

“Jeremiah did an excellent job. He told me where he was right away,” Gomez said. “These calls don’t usually go that way.”

After the incident Jeremiah spoke with Bishop Garriga Middle Preparatory School Principal Judith Priest about ways to help the family. The school placed piggy banks in classrooms where students dropped in change for about a month, raising more than $1,000 that was presented Wednesday to Martinez’s family.

“It was 160 pounds worth of change,” Priest said.

Martinez’s family wore T-shirts saying “In loving memory of Gregorio David Martinez” as Jeremiah and school officials presented them with a check and other gifts.

The two families then met in the principal’s office and Jeremiah tearfully told the Martinez family how the incident has affected him and why he wanted to meet them.

“A boy I didn’t even know changed the way I look at life,” Jeremiah said to the family. “It makes you realize how much you should value life and value others.”

Jeremiah and Martinez’s mother, Monica Martinez, passed a box of tissues back-and-forth as they spoke. Monica Martinez said she was glad to meet the person who called police and other family members assured Jeremiah he did the “most valuable thing you could have done.”