PHP - Binding results of an mysqli query to an associative array

I'm trying to retrieve the results of a query using mysqli and put them into an associative array. After searching online I found this post:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/994041/how-can-i-put-the-results-of-a-mysqli-prepared-statement-into-an-associative-arr

Where this code is outlined:

$meta = $statement->result_metadata(); 

while ($field = $meta->fetch_field()) { 
    $params[] = &$row[$field->name]; 
} 

call_user_func_array(array($statement, 'bind_result'), $params);            
while ($statement->fetch()) { 
    foreach($row as $key => $val) { 
        $c[$key] = $val; 
    } 
    $hits[] = $c; 
} 
$statement->close();

I've been trying to implement the technique but something isn't working and I don't know if it's because I'm understanding it wrong or not.

So this is, line by line, what I think is going on (please correct me if I'm wrong):

$meta = $statement->result_metadata(); 

Set the variable "$meta" a result object containing the metadata from the query I prepared

while ($field = $meta->fetch_field()) { 
    $params[] = &$row[$field->name]; 
} 

Loop through the array of objects representing the fields in the meta data (returned from the fetch_field method) and for each of them set the key of a new array "$params" to the field's "name" property

call_user_func_array(array($statement, 'bind_result'), $params);

Use the "call_user_fun_array" function to call the method "bind_result" from the object "$statement" and pass into it our "$params" array, meaning that we would be setting up each of the keys in the "$param" array to catch the results of our query when it runs

while ($statement->fetch()) {

Start fetching the prepared query

   foreach($row as $key => $val) {

For each row of the returned array, assign the key to the variable "$key"

        $c[$key] = $val;

And then create a new associative array "$c" where the key is set to the value of "$key" and it's value is the current element's value

    $hits[] = $c;

And then take the array "$c" assign it to another new array "$hits"

Blergh, sorry if it gets a bit muddied towards the end. I think it reflects my confusion over the situation. I guess I follow the logic all of the way up until the while loop where we're looping through the results of our query. Could someone straighten this out logically for me?