YPSILANTI, Mich. (WXYZ) — Typically when a baby is delivered in Ypsilanti it's at an area hospital, but that wasn't the case for 17-year-old Jermir Bennett.
"When I told my friends about it they were like ’That’s like a great story people want to hear,'" said Bennett.
So he's telling it. In 2005 Bennett's mother felt the pains of labor and went to a local Ypsilanti hospital.
Once she got there she was told the baby wasn't ready yet, but the moment she got home, Jermir was on his way.
His mom called 911 and two Ypsilanti firefighters arrived, Greg Brierley and Joe Knasiak.
Bennett said his mom remembers them as calm, cool, and collected - even if that was just a facade.
"I remember my mom said that one of the firefighters had told her that he delivered babies all the time," recalled Bennett. "Then, after it was done, he told her ‘Yeah this is my first one.’ I thought that was kind of funny."
Greg Brierley told us; "We didn’t have time to think ’should we?' or ‘do we have to?’ It was more or less we got there, we assessed what was going on, and Joe and I looked at each other and said ‘We’re gonna deliver this baby right here, right now.'"
So they did.
On July 10, 2005, Brierley and Knasiak helped bring Jermir Bennett into the world, but unbeknownst to everyone in the home that day, it wouldn't be the last time they'd all be together.
"It’s always been like at the back of my head to meet them but I never really thought I would," said Bennett.
This past spring Bennett invited the two men to attend his graduation ceremony at Washtenaw International High School.
Brierley said, "To actually get invited to a graduation, which is a big deal in this young man’s life, it just means a lot."
The trio along with Bennett's family met at Barnes and Noble and then went to dinner and the graduation ceremony.
The same night Brierley and Knasiak watched Bennett walk across the stage they learned that what they did to help him was something that the family never stopped being grateful for.
When interviewing with us Bennett was sitting outside the University of Toledo. He plans to pursue social work there this fall, inspired by these two Ypsilanti firefighters.
"I kind of took that with me in life, just to, like, be helpful all the time," said Bennett. "I think that’s something about me that probably came from that situation."
