An Edmonton family was reunited Thursday with the police inspector that saved their now-grown daughter’s life almost 20 years ago.

Speaking at a press conference aimed at encouraging new recruits to join the Edmonton police, Insp. Ed McIsaac and the Mason family recounted the dramatic day they first met.

It was November 18, 1995, and the Mason family was travelling in their car when their daughter, Kaitlyn Mason-Baril, began gagging in the backseat. The Mason parents pulled over to search for help for Kaitlyn, who was two years old at the time.

McIsaac was responding to an incident nearby. When he heard a woman screaming, he rushed over and found Mason-Baril choking.

“We got Kaitlyn out of the car seat and were outside and my wife ran to call for an ambulance and Ed came over and grabbed ahold of Kaitlyn and he started performing CPR,” Don Mason, Mason-Baril’s father, said.

“She was blue,” McIsaac told CTV News. “Her lips were blue. Her eyes were rolling back. She wasn’t breathing.”

“He tried everything in the book,” Don said. “All of the sudden, Kaitlyn coughed up and started breathing.”

McIsaac says he reached into the toddler’s mouth…and pulled out a quarter.

Looking back, McIsaac says, the day he saved “young Kaitlyn” was one of the most meaningful moments of his lengthy policing career. The second, he said, was when he met the family last summer.

“Those two days stand out in my 28-year career,” McIsaac said.

At the news conference, Mason-Baril clutched a teddy bear McIsaac gave her. She said she also has a newspaper clipping from the day which she keeps in her room.

“I’m really, really grateful,” she said. “It means the world to me.”

With files from CTV Edmonton’s Ashley Molnar.