Stacy Huddle said she should have known.
The Colorado Springs, Colorado, nurse taught labor and delivery classes and, even today, cares for new moms and newborns postpartum.
But on Feb. 15, 2004, on what should have been a quiet Sunday, she was in denial.
Stacy, who was 39 weeks pregnant, had been sick. She thought she had the flu, and what she felt, it must have been that, right?
But firefighter and paramedic Alan Kent assessed the situation differently.
As soon as he and a team of fellow firefighters and EMTs pulled up to Stacy and husband Todd Huddle’s home around 6 a.m. and heard the screams, Kent said, “Oh, we’re getting ready to have a baby.” He had delivered babies before in his career. “I told the guys, go grab the OB kit. This sounds like it could be it.”
Labor progressed like wildfire.
Baby Chloe Faith Huddle, who was due on Kent’s birthday a week later, on Feb. 23, was not waiting to come into the world. She was delivered at 6:10 a.m., just 15 minutes after 9-1-1 received the emergency call.
“Alan was one of the first people to really hold me,” said Chloe, who will graduate Friday afternoon from Grand Canyon University with her bachelor’s degree in educational studies and a minor in Christian studies. “… We’ve just always had a bond.”
And they’ll continue to strengthen that bond when he attends Chloe’s commencement ceremony, traveling with wife Laura from Colorado Springs, where he’s enjoying the first few months of retirement.
It isn’t the first time they’ve reunited. Their reunions have become a tradition for the Huddles and Kents.
Soon after Chloe was born, the Huddles stopped by Colorado Springs Fire Department Station 15 to thank Kent.
They decided then, “They just wanted to celebrate every single year, and so when I was younger, I spent every single birthday at the fire station,” Chloe said.
It wasn’t something she ever questioned – that she’d have cake at a fire station, instead of a Chuck E. Cheese, surrounded by firefighters.
“I always thought it was kind of different. But it didn’t resonate with me that this wasn’t a normal thing,” she said.
They’ve spent almost every birthday together, minus the COVID years, and of course, when Chloe moved to Phoenix and the GCU campus.
The tradition grew to include other big events, like Kent’s retirement last July.
Chloe thought, before graduating from Classical Academy in 2022, that she would follow in her mother’s footsteps and go into nursing. Like Kent and her mom, she wanted to help people.
But she was called to ministry, having served a mission trip to Guatemala soon after her graduation from high school.
Chloe started her time at GCU majoring in elementary education, but the more she served in youth ministry and worked with children – she was involved in her church off campus – she realized that’s what she wanted to do with her life.
So she switched majors to educational studies, which examines how people learn and how to be an effective educator. The major is for those who want to work outside of the traditional public school teaching certification.
Her dream is to pastor a church alongside her fiancé, a GCU Christian studies major who Chloe met, appropriately, at the campus Prayer Chapel.
The most memorable birthday, Chloe said, of all the birthdays she’s spent with Kent, would be when she turned 15.
“They’re all special in some sort of way, but my 15th birthday was the golden birthday because I was turning 15 on the 15th with Fire Station 15. That was really special because my whole family was there, my high school friends at the time were there, and it was like the first birthday at the station we’d had in a while.
“ … I got to enjoy it more, because I was growing up and was able to realize the blessing (of friendship) and the cool opportunity I’ve had throughout my life.”
Another special event stood out: Kent’s retirement.
Chloe traveled from Phoenix especially for Kent's big day.
He spent 35 years serving his community as a firefighter and paramedic.
“It’s one thing I’d always wanted to do,” said Kent, who loved watching TV series “Emergency” when he was growing up. The show followed Squad 51 of the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Paramedical Rescue Service.
He had the chance, too, in high school to take fire science classes at the local college.
To get his foot in the door, he started as a hotshot crew member in 1984 fighting wildfires.
“I’ve been pretty blessed to do that,” he said. “ … I always liked this job because I never knew what the next call was going to be. There was always that unknown.”
Beyond that fast pace, the excitement and adrenaline rush, Kent said, ultimately, “It was helping people in that time, in their need," like he did for the Huddle family that day, when then-baby Chloe just couldn’t wait to start her life in the world.
She said, as a girl, whenever her family would drive by Fire Station 15, she would wave and say, “Hi, Mr. Alan!” and anytime a firetruck was making its way through the neighborhood roads, she would always look to see if it was Fire Station 15 or if Kent would be on the truck.
“Alan is like another father figure in my life,” said Chloe, and the Kent family isn’t the Kent family. They're just family.
For Kent, who has one son, “It’s almost like I had a daughter.”
The joy of his career, “It’s got to be Chloe. To watch her grow up every year, I got to really know her family, both sides. … I’ve been to her sister and her brother’s weddings already.”
And, of course, he’ll be at Chloe’s wedding in July.
“We’re trying to figure out something special, to incorporate him in the wedding,” she said. “My mom would always say, it went from needing medical help from a stranger to then becoming family with paramedics and having a deeper appreciation for it.”
And Kent, on the cusp of Chloe’s graduation, has some advice for her: Enjoy the next turn in your life. “I always just tell her, ‘Be happy.’ ”
Manager of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at [email protected] or at 602-639-7901.
