On Wednesday night, July 15, 1915, Winston-Salem Fire Company No. 2 went to help put out a small blaze. Upon finding that the fire was located in the tailoring shop of H. Miller in the Paramount Theater Building, the firefighters broke into a storeroom. They found a blazing ironing board with electric iron on it. Thinking that the electric iron was the cause of the conflagration, twenty-two year old fireman Jonah Dee Kiser attempted to cut the iron’s current. However, the firefighter received an electrical shock that knocked him. According to the July 16 edition of the Winston-Salem Journal, the electric shock “knocked him unconscious and caused almost instant death.”
An ambulance took the fireman to City Hospital. When he was removed from the ambulance, Kiser had expired. Doctors attempted to revive Kiser, but their efforts proved unsuccessful. The fireman’s demise, according to his death certificate, resulted from “electric shock (almost instant death)” with a “weak heart” being a contributing factor.
Ironically, two days earlier, Fire Chief Harry E. Nissen had learned that Kiser had a weak heart. The chief, as reported in the Winston-Salem Journal of July 16, 1915, suggested to the young firefighter that he leave the fire department. Chief Nissen thought that Kiser “might experience some excitement in attending a fire which would prove fatal.” The Winston-Salem Journal of July 16, 1915, noted that the chief “had no idea that the warning would come true at such an early date.”
Kiser’s death was shocking and tragic to his family and fellow firemen. He had only been a firefighter since January 1915. Yet, Kiser was “considered one of the best and hardest working men on the [firefighting] force (Winston-Salem Journal, July 15, 1915.). The young fireman was newly wed; he was married the previous Easter. The Winston-Salem Journal of July 16, 1915 noted that because of Kiser’s death the “central station was draped yesterday in mourning over the loss of their beloved comrade.” Kiser’s funeral was conducted on July 16, 1915 at the home of his father Sanford Kiser. He was interred at Woodland Cemetery.
