'Firehall Baby' has chance reunion with the Cochrane man who delivered her

A Calgary woman is calling a chance reunion with the man who delivered her "fate."

Kristi Perrault was born in a Cochrane firehall in 1982. 

That was long before the city had in-town ambulance service, which meant residents sometimes faced lengthy waits if an emergency arose. 

And that's exactly what happened to Perrault's mother, Chris Garbus, one September night. 

"We were told the EMS weren't going to make it before I popped," she said. "So we flagged an RCMP officer, and he directed us to the firehall."

Fire crews ushered the pregnant Garbus into the kitchen, where a massive table was set up for cooking. 

That evening, it served a different purpose. 

"I had an agreement that if (the firefighters) couldn't do it, I'd help out," retired Cochrane physician Dr. Dennis Fundytus said. "And so I came over to the firehall and Perrault's mom was on the kitchen table, just about ready to deliver."

"They made me feel comfortable and not so scared," Garbus said of the experience. "But after (Perrault) was born, I had a tough decision."

Garbus tells CTV News at the time, she was "young and unemployed."

She figured putting Perrault up for adoption might give her daughter a chance for "a better life," and so that's what she did.

2004 REUNION

Alberta opened up adoption records in 2004, and Garbus said she was waiting for a call. 

"Of course I wanted to meet (Perrault)," she said, "but there's always that possibility that the call would never come."

But Perrault felt the same way about a reunion. 

And after a quick search through Garbus' family, she was eventually put in contact with her biological mother. 

"It was incredible," she said. "We had that connection and I was so happy we could come into each other's lives again."

2022 FATE

But that was the first of two significant reunions for Perrault. 

Earlier this summer, as she did her rounds as a nurse, a co-worker mentioned a familiar name. 

"When my charge nurse said the last name, your ears perk up," she said. "But I didn't know for sure. So I didn't seek it out: I just grabbed the chart."

Lo and behold, that chart belonged to one Dennis Fundytus, at Foothills for outpatient support. 

"Kristi will struggle with whether she should or shouldn't have reached out to me," he told CTV News Saturday, "but fortunately, she did. And the rest is a feel good story."

"I was like, 'oh my gosh, this is crazy,'" Perrault added. "The first thing he said was, 'you're the firehall baby? How is that possible?'"

Perrault called her biological mother, and Garbus eventually set up a three-person meeting. 

"It was fate," Garbus said. "And it worked out perfectly."

The three Albertans now stay in contact and consider themselves friends, 40 years after a random encounter. 

"Those relationships that we all started will be forever ongoing, because of the appreciation each one has for the other," Perrault said.