Meet Me Monday
Name: Jordan Craven
Agency: Kinston Department of Public Safety, Fire and Rescue Division
Rank: Captain
Education: South Lenoir High School, 2005
Joined KDPS: Sept. 24, 2007
Fun Fact: Engaged Dec. 21, 2012
He became a professional firefighter at 19 years old, and a captain at 25.
But, the path started even earlier than that.
“It was something I wanted to do when I was younger,” Jordan Craven said, who was promoted to his current rank with the Kinston Department of Public Safety’s Fire and Rescue Division in October 2012. “I actually got my start in a volunteer fire department — Southwood on (N.C.) 58 South — I started there when I was 16, kind of got my feet wet with it and decided it was something I wanted to do as a career.”
Specifically, Craven’s a training and safety captain. It’s his job to make sure his fellow firefighters are properly outfitted and have the right training to not only meet the state’s standards, but also be successful when duty calls. Soon, he’ll be starting a medical responder class, which is a state-certified EMS program.
“Why I got into the fire service is to help people,” Craven said. “To me, helping people, providing a service to the citizens of the community, and surrounding communities as they pass through our city — that’s the biggest thing to me … that I’m trained to the best of my ability and have the adequate equipment to protect the people.”
In the years that he’s been fighting fires, the incident that sticks with Craven the most is the Kinston Fibers fire in November 2011, when he and his captain — Leslie Jenkins — barely had enough oxygen to make it out of the building.
“Me and my captain actually went in, we found the fire, and we started getting low on air. So, we started going out and began to get disoriented because there was so much smoke and machinery,” Craven said. “We actually called for help. Me and my captain ran out of air inside the building — I was right at running out of air when I came out of the building.
“That’s something we train on a lot, but rarely, rarely have to do. We do what we call a ‘mayday’ over the radio, where we have people come in and help. Being in that situation, and actually being the one to have to call mayday for the guys to come in and get me — that’s something that I will never forget.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at WolfeReports.
