A Georgia cop delivered a baby on the highway. 20 years later, the two met again

It was about 20 years ago, in July of 1007, when a Suwanee, Ga., police officer was driving home from work and got stuck in traffic on I-85.

It was just an everyday annoyance, and a common-enough way to end a day in metro-Atlanta - but suddenly, Officer Elton Hassell saw something that made his commute anything but normal. A car was pulled over on the side of the road, and a man was outside. He was screaming.

When Hassell went to go see what was wrong, he realized there was a woman in the car having a baby, Fox 5 reported. There was no way they could get to the hospital.

Hassell knelt down and helped deliver the infant, who came out blue and choking from the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Hassell unwrapped the cord, saving the baby's life, Fox 5 reported.

Now, that boy is a man, 20-year-old Yelsin Vazquez, who has a wife and child of his own. The two reunited last week in Suwanee for the first time in nearly two decades.

"Oh my God. The last time I hugged you, you're weren't much bigger than her," Hassell said to Vazquez and his daughter, reported WSB-TV. "We are family," Hassell told Vazquez's mother as she cried and hugged him.

Vazquez's wife organized the reunion because she was so grateful to the officer for saving her husband's life, WSB-TV reported.

"She said, 'Because of you saving his life, now I have a husband and a beautiful child.' And that hit me here," Officer Hassell told the station.

This story was originally published December 27, 2017 at 8:56 AM with the headline "A Georgia cop delivered a baby on the highway. 20 years later, the two met again."