Four Municipal Employees Honored as NC Public Power Hometown Heroes

8/18/2010 3:51:11 PM

Raleigh, NC, August 18, 2010 – Four individuals were recently recognized as Hometown Heroes by ElectriCities of North Carolina. The awards were presented during the ElectriCities Annual Meeting banquet, held on August 13. Hometown Hero awards are presented annually to municipal employees who have made an outstanding effort to save a life in their community.
The Hometown Hero award was presented to: Officer Mike Drake of the Concord Police Department; Brian Marshall and Kelvin Pittman of the Rocky Mount Gas Department; and Andy Stroud of the High Point Parks Maintenance Department.

 

Listed below are the heroic actions of each individual. Please contact Leigh Ann Frink at lfrink@electricities.com for photos of the recipients.

 

Mike Drake
On February 4, police received a call about a house fire and were informed that some residents were possibly inside. Police Officer Mike Drake was the first to arrive, and the front of the house was totally engulfed in flames. Officer Drake rushed to the back of the house and saw a man lying on the floor of the enclosed porch near the door leading to the kitchen, which was filled with smoke. Officer Drake asked the man, who was intoxicated, to come out, but the man insisted on trying to locate his dog first.
Officer Drake, without hesitation, entered the enclosed porch and physically dragged the man out of the burning house, then went back to look for the dog until he was forced out by the flames and smoke.
Brian Marshall and Kelvin Pittman
Gas Department employees Brian Marshall and Kelvin Pittman were traveling to a work site when they saw smoke coming from a residence. They circled the block to see if anyone was in danger, and noticed ever more smoke coming from the back of the house. They immediately stopped and began knocking on the doors and windows, trying to determine if the residence was occupied. The noise woke up the resident, who was sleeping inside. The house by this point was consumed by flames and quickly filling with smoke.
Marshall and Pittman used a cinderblock to break the bedroom window and help the occupant escape. Firefighters quickly arrived at the scene and noted that if the two men had not taken action, the occupant would have died in the fire.
Andy Stroud
Around 5 a.m. last August 30, Parks Maintenance Crew leader Andy Stroud was arriving for work. When he got out of his car, he heard a woman screaming. Without hesitation, Stroud took off in the direction of the scream. He came upon a man viciously attacking a woman. The attacker fled, and Andy called 911 and stayed with the woman until EMS responded and took her to the hospital. The attacker was quickly identified and captured by the police. He was a convicted felon who had recently been released from prison after serving nearly a decade behind bars for sexual assault. He was charged and held under a $10 million bond.
ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc. (ElectriCities), North Carolina Municipal Power Agency Number 1 (NCMPA1), North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency (NCEMPA) - More than 70 North Carolina public power communities, municipally owned and operated electric systems, serve more than 500,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in North Carolina. ElectriCities' members in NC, SC and VA serve more than one million customers. Most have been providing reliable electric service for 100 years or more. ElectriCities is the service organization that provides customer service and safety training, emergency and technical assistance, communications, government affairs and legal services to public power communities. ElectriCities provides management services to the state’s two municipal power agencies: NCMPA1 and NCEMPA. NCMPA1 has 19 member cities in the western part of North Carolina and NCEMPA has 32 member cities in eastern North Carolina. More information about ElectriCities is available at www.electricities.com. More information about the Power Agencies and NC Public Power is available at www.ncpublicpower.com