ROCKDALE COUNTY, Ga. — A Rockdale County firefighter killed while responding to an emergency call was active in his church and worked a side gig as a disc jockey.
Juan Antonia Smith was 26 years old worked full-time for Rockdale County Fire Rescue. He grew up attending The Piney Grove Baptist Church in southeast Atlanta, where the pastor described him as “just a wonderful, wonderful young man.”
Dr. William Flippin told Channel 2’s Bryan Mims that Smith sang in the men’s chorus and his father is a longtime deacon at the church.
“The church was always proud of him when he’d come around with his uniform on,” Flippin said.
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On Friday, just after 5 p.m., Smith was one of three firefighters on a ladder truck responding to a structure fire. As it turned left from Sigman Road onto Eastview Road, the truck flipped onto its side, and Smith was ejected. A witness said the firefighter was pinned beneath the truck as first responders tried to rescue him.
“His brothers tried to get him from under the truck,” said Yasuke Aki, who ran over to the crash from the gas station where he works. “They tried their best. They tried to lift it up with some of the equipment they brought, like jacks.”
Smith died on the scene. The Georgia State Patrol is investigating what caused the crash.
Mims asked the pastor if Smith grew up dreaming to become a firefighter.
“It fit him well because he loved helping people, and so it was a profession that just fit him,” Flippin said. “I don’t know if he always wanted to be a fireperson, but I do know that he was a young man who just liked to serve people. Not to make light of it, he needed a job, and he went after it.”
He said that Smith also worked as a DJ at parties across metro Atlanta and at his church gatherings.
“He was very polite, very kind, with a smile,” Flippin said. “I never saw him when he was not smiling. And he made you feel good when you were around him.”
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Flippen said the church family “feels devastated, but is trusting in God in his infinite wisdom.”
The pastor said he wants to create a memorial scholarship in Smith’s honor.
“I’ll see to that, that his name will never be not remembered, and his life, his legacy and his untimely death,” he said. “But we do have faith. We are people of faith.”
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