HOPEWELL, Va. -- A group of Hopewell firefighters received a special visitor this week. It was someone they had not seen since the day he was born 22 years ago.
The firefighters were on the scene in May 1998 to help deliver baby boy Devinne in the parking lot of the AutoZone on Oaklawn Boulevard.
"It was a day that all of us could remember every detail (as it was my first delivery) and many funny stories were told, somehow amazing the experience is to deliver a new life and also how scared we were with the huge responsibility," Hopewell Fire Chief Donny Hunter recalled in a Facebook post. "It is and now will be one of my most memorable calls and to see the great person he is and is striving to become made it that much more rewarding."
"You're unbelievably scared but you're unbelievably excited at the same time," Hunter said. "We were new EMT's and having a baby is a big responsibility, so there was alot of fussing and worry driving over there."
Devinne shared some life updates with the men who helped bring him into the world.
"Just to see like them go back into their minds and relive those memories right in front of me, just to see what it was like, on that day of my arrival," Devinne said.
"Well, other than being born in a parking lot, I am currently enrolled at VCU and pursuing a Bachelor’s in psychology," he said.
He added that he wanted to become a peer specialist.
"[I want to] begin to talk about and make it normal for males to seek help when needed and to do away with the stigma that men can’t show their emotions," he said. "There’s a saying I’ve been promoting to myself and I hope to pass on to others, 'sensitive with thick skin.'"
Apparently, the chief noted, Devinne's loved ones made good on a promise to honor the child's unusual birthplace in the form of his middle name -- Otto.
