Colorado Springs firefighter Alan Kent was just doing his job when he responded to an emergency call at the home of Stacy and Todd Huddle on Feb. 15, 2004. 

What came next — a lifelong bond between Kent and the family of the child he helped deliver that Sunday morning — may have been born of timing and happenstance. 

Twenty-two years later, it feels more like fate.

It’s certainly got history: Kent has attended Chloe Huddle’s birthday parties, her graduation from high school and from college, and on July 15, her wedding in Arizona. In turn, the Huddles have been there for major Kent family events, including Alan’s July 2025 retirement from the Fire Department.

Theirs is a heartwarming story that’s made local and national headlines too many times to count, but its true power lies in a quieter kind of alchemy — of connections, gratitude and the building of a chosen family, in baby steps. 

This is how it began.

Stacy Huddle was 39 weeks pregnant with her third child. She’d planned on giving birth in the hospital, but this labor was different, progressing so quickly she knew there was no way she was going to make it in time.

“I was in denial I was in labor, to be honest with you. I thought I was just sick,” Stacy said. 

Her husband at first tried to adhere to the established game plan. 

“I was trying to get her in the car and she looked at me and said, ‘If you want me to go to the hospital, you’re going to have to call an ambulance,’” Todd said.

So he did, dialing 911 and connecting with a dispatcher, who told him responders were en route. At the time, the family lived just a few blocks from CSFD Station 15. Help was literally minutes away. 

“The dispatcher stayed on the phone with me and made sure that I could hear the fire truck coming up. It was just a calm, peaceful feeling of relief hearing it coming,” he said. “And it was a very good thing we did not get into our car. We would have delivered on the road.”

“And then we probably wouldn’t have had Alan,” said Stacy.

Much of what Stacy Huddle remembers from that morning is buried under a cloud of pain, but through the “labor brain” blur, she distinctly remembers the sounds of commotion at the front door, then “eight men clomping up those stairs.” It was the sound of “relief” on the way.

“I don’t really remember exactly the moment he came in, or even really who he was. I just knew he was some guy there to help me and keep me safe,” Stacy said. “So, I’m in our bed, and Alan came around, and … didn’t I say, ‘I’m not having a baby?’”

Minutes later, Alan settled her newborn daughter into her arms.

“Alan was the first to touch her, and see her, and hold her,” Stacy said.

That’s not something a mother forgets.

To be fair, it wasn’t the delivery that set the things apart for the firefighter. Chloe’s entry into the world may have come as a surprise, but as emergencies go it was an uncomplicated birth. Kent said he couldn’t estimate how many babies he helped deliver during his 35-year career, but Chloe wasn’t the first or only.

Babies are one of the best parts of a job that can wear on your soul.

“You’re not going to stay in this job and not see bad things. I always tell new kids, ’You’re gonna see stuff that people shouldn’t see. That’s a part of the career.’ But I’ve had some very amazing things in my career. But this one stands out. This has been the No. 1, not just the delivery of Chloe, but getting to know her, getting to know her family — the moms and the dads, the grandmas, the grandpas. It’s been a blessing in my life to be a part of that.”

It’s not uncommon for a person saved or assisted by firefighters to visit a station, to shake hands, hug and share their gratitude. The Huddle’s follow-up set it apart.

A week after Chloe was born, Stacy bundled up her infant daughter and went to visit the CSFD firefighter who’d helped bring her into the world. 

There’s a picture. I was holding Chloe in the fire station,” Alan said. “So, I got to hold her the second time. That was pretty cool.”

A tradition was born, and would become one of many.

Today, Alan struggles to discuss the relationship without misting up.

“I’ve watched her grow up, I watched her accomplish things, you know. So, it’s been — it’s been amazing. It’s still amazing how emotional I still get with that, but I’ve been, I’ve been honored for it,” he said. “I kind of almost say she’s like a daughter.”

On a morning in late spring, the extended family — Kent, Huddles and Chloe’s fiance, Wyatt McGriff — gathered at the Huddle home, to share some of those memories.

“I think we just kept coming back to the fire station every year for birthdays — that was a priority — but we also thought, well, we should make this long-term and make sure that we go to all life events,” Stacy said. “And that was kind of our goal, and that’s just what we did.”

Even deeper bonds were to come. 

In 2012, Stacy and Chloe’s older sister, Maddie, were involved in an traumatic equestrian accident that left Maddie seriously injured and Stacy with critical injuries that required hospitalization.

“I think one of the biggest testaments of our friendship was Alan and (his wife) Laura jumped in to help my mom take care of Maddie’s medical care while I was hospitalized,” said Stacy, who is a nurse consultant. “And then I had to go back to work, but I couldn’t drive, and so Alan, we spent … what? Two days together?”

Alan nodded from a nearby spot on the couch. 

“I learned a lot from you on those little adventures, about what you did on your job, and how it kind of ties in with what I do,” he said.

Chloe Huddle grew up with the understanding that she had a special person in her life, whose role was both straightforward and confusing to try to explain: “My firefighter.”

Wyatt McGriff, the boyfriend who would become fiance, and later her husband, on July 15, 2026, thought the story was quirky and sweet, and highly unusual.

“I never thought I’d be a part of that, as well, in our future,” he said.  

Chloe remembers a long-ago elementary school field trip to Station 15, and feeling like a celebrity “showing all my classmates, like, oh yeah, this is where I have my birthday parties, and there’s Mr. Alan, and this is all the fire trucks I get to play in when it’s my birthday.”

She remembers the first of what would be countless TV, newspaper and magazine interviews, starting at her fifth birthday party, the first to which her mom invited the media. 

The media wasn’t done with them and their touching story, though. Not by a long shot.  

“People Magazine, Washington Post, CNN, CBS Evening News — we counted 30 states whose media picked up the original media announcement about Chloe’s graduation from Grand Canyon University and that Alan would be attending,” Stacy said. 

When word got out that Alan and his wife would travel hundreds of miles to Chloe and Wyatt’s wedding, phones again began ringing off the hook with requests to cover the event. 

The Huddles turned them all down. 

Chloe and Wyatt’s wedding would be a quiet, intimate and unplugged affair.

“Just the families and loved ones,” Stacy said. 

In 2016, before heading off to study to become a teacher in Arizona, Chloe wrote about “her” firefighter in a high school essay recounting a cherished memory. 

She wrote about a vow her parents made to the Kents, back when she was too little to understand words, “to spend every birthday, graduation and my wedding day with them as a huge ‘thank you.’”

Promises kept. 

“It’s got to be a God thing how it all worked out,” Stacy said. “Our families, we were meant to be together.”