Toronto racecar driver to honour hospital that saved his life as a premature baby at Honda Indy

After a two year hiatus, Toronto’s annual race, the Honda Indy, is finally roaring back to the streets this weekend.

And among the drivers revved up and ready to race is Devlin DeFrancesco, who was born in the city two decades ago, and is looking to honour the hospital that carried him into the world.

The 22-year-old rookie, who is ranked 22nd in the world and is making his Honda Indy debut in the NTT Indycar series, likes to say he’s always been in a hurry.

His slogan is “born fast” — and he’s not kidding. DeFrancesco was born 15 weeks premature.

And at an event on Thursday at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, DeFrancesco praised the medical team that saved him as a newborn.

"Definitely extremely lucky and fortunate to have had the team at Sunnybrook around me, because without them, I most likely wouldn’t have been here,” he said at the event.

In a mini documentary, DeFrancesco’s mother talked about how her son was born incredibly premature.

"He really had no chance of survival,” she said. “The doctors even said, ‘you should get his last rites,’ The priest came."

He had a collapsed lung, serious brain bleed, and weighed only one pound. The first four months of his life were spent in an incubator in the neonatal care unit.

A doctor and nurse who cared for him all those years ago were at the event on Thursday.

DeFrancesco beat the odds to overcome those complications. By age six, he was already pursuing his passion for driving fast.

Now, as a professional racecar driver, he’s using his position to launch a campaign called Racing For The Tiniest Babies in order to raise money for Sunnybrook.

He will be matching donations up to $250,000 for the hospital’s DAN Women & Babies Program, which helps thousands of families and premature babies across Ontario, with money also going towards as the hospital’s neonatal program and its ICU, which deals each year with around seventy micro preemies — like DeFrancesco — all weighing under three pounds.

“I will always support Sunnybrook for the rest of my life,” DeFrancesco said.

This weekend, as he races around the track, his car will sport the hospital’s logo. As will his racing suit and his helmet, emblazoned with Sunnybrook’s name and words of encouragement.

One key sentiment on the side of the helmet sums it up: “once small, always strong.”