NORFOLK, Va. — On a cool Sunday night, a crowd gathered outside Sentara Norfolk General Hospital for a prayer vigil.
The man they're praying for, 24-year-old Hunter Stephens, a Suffolk firefighter, was just steps away, inside the hospital, fighting heart failure.
Kim Johnston, Hunter's mom, told News 3's Jay Greene it all started about a week ago when he had some sinus congestion.
"Then we just ended up at the emergency room at Obici and then figured out he was in heart failure and transported here to Norfolk," she said.
At this point, there are more questions than answers, Johnston said.
[Doctors] are doing a lot of tests to see how to proceed from here," she said.
His wife is waiting for him, and he's a brand new dad. Their son is turning 3-months-old on Monday.
"[Hunter] can't wait for him to get a little bit older because he loves to hunt. You know, deer hunt and duck hunting, any kind of fowl hunting," Johnston said.
Joshua Baker, a senior firefighter and chaplain, told Greene while Stephens made firefighting a career in 2019, he started way before that.
"Hunter has been a probably a firefighter since the day he was born," Baker said. "He volunteered as a firefighter from the age of I would say 15-16 years old."
Baker led Sunday's vigil, starting with a prayer.
"I was nervous on the way in here and I kind of just relied on my prayers and the Lord to guide me through it. And it went flawless," Baker said. "I feel like he really, really is going to have miraculous healing from this and just to guide the doctors hands on what's going on."
Stephens would do anything for anyone, Baker said.
In addition, Baker said it was Stephens' own firefighter colleagues that rushed him to the hospital last week.
"Just like anybody we treat it as an immediate response. So when [the paramedics] took him, they had already made the phone calls that they were bringing him in," Baker said. "Obviously, he was expecting him and it was about a 2025 minute turnaround from Obici to here, which if you're in the medical field, you know that that's, that's, that's good time. Very good time."
The crowd broke out into an applause toward the end of the vigil, all to help this firefighter fight what appears to be a long battle ahead.
His mom said words can't describe how she feels from the community's support.
"Between the support here and all of the texts and calls and the Go Fund Me page all of the support that we have had from family friends, people we don't even know, the fire departments, not just the city of Suffolk, but other fire departments is just unbelievable and amazing," she said.
Click or tap here to see the Go Fund Me page which benefits Hunter and his family.
