From a Knoxville fire department comes the bizarre story of a small-world encounter when a high school graduate named ‘OT' was interning there and thought he was meeting the firefighters for the first time.

Unbeknownst to him, some of the firefighters already had had the pleasure of making his acquaintance—when OT was buck naked, quivering from the light from his mother's bedroom after they helped deliver him 18 years ago.

O'Tavais (OT) Harris is the seventh son of Lateshia Hall, who at that point in her life knew when a baby was on its way. At a little before 7:00 pm on New Year's Day 2005, Hall asked her mother to call 911, knowing this baby wasn't waiting for anyone.

In came Kevin Faddis and Mark Wilbanks from the Knoxville Fire Department to help deliver Hall's baby, clamp off and cut the umbilical cord, and hang around until an ambulance arrived to take Hall and OT to the hospital.

Fast-forward 18 years and O'Tavais had graduated from high school and was accepted into Knoxville's Summer in the City program. A paid internship that allows departing students to intern at various civic departments.

One day, Lateshia received a video call from her son standing next to Kevin Faddis, the mentor of his internship program, and said that OT asked if she knew the man.

"He doesn't even want to be a firefighter, so it was one in a million," OT's mom Lateshia told the Washington Post. "This man had delivered my baby, and now OT was standing next to him? Incredible!"

Telling the Post how the encounter went, OT said they put two and two together after Faddis learned where OT used to live.

"He asked me how many siblings I had, and I told him I had a lot—more than a lot," Harris said. "Then he asked what part of town I lived in, and I told him some of the streets I'd lived on."

At that point, Faddis exclaimed he had delivered a baby in that part of town, something which OT had always heard from his mom—at which point it all became clear.

Faddis said he remembered the day as clear as ever—the first time he got a call for such a thing. He recalled that Lateshia was as cool as a cucumber saying that there wasn't time to go to the hospital. His colleague Wilbanks has delivered 6 in his career as a firefighter, but OT was the only spontaneous one, with the whole thing taking less than a minute.

It's a small world, and though OT doesn't have an interest in fighting fires (or delivering babies) he was very appreciative of the opportunity to thank the two men who have a unique place in his life story.

He plans to study English when he goes off to East Tennessee University, after which he hopes to work in education.

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