‘The gentle giant’: Rock Hill firefighter remembered for strength, kind heart

At over 6 feet tall, Charles “Chuck” Mozingo was a dominating physical presence.

That makes his absence even more noticeable at the Rock Hill Fire Department, where Mozingo served for 10 years. He died last week at age 45 after a battle with leukemia. He will be buried Tuesday with full fire department honors.

Capt. Mike Jadwinski called Mozingo “the gentle giant.”

“He’s such a big guy, but he’s kind-hearted and gentle,” he said, adding Mozingo seemed quiet at first, but “once you get him open, he’ll talk to you.”

Mozingo was a sheriff’s deputy before coming to the Rock Hill Fire Department where, Jadwinski said, he excelled at not only doing his job but also training the younger firefighters in doing theirs.

“In the morning, I would come in, do my office work and not have to worry,” he said. “Chuck would come in, go right out to the truck, check it off and grab the new guys.”

Battalion Chief Chris Channell, who supervised Mozingo, said he was a friend to almost everyone.

“It didn’t matter how bad a day you were having,” he said. “When you see him, he was smiling. He was gonna turn that day around.”

Mozingo was around 6-foot-2 and played football for Lewisville High School and Wofford College as a defensive lineman. He was known in the department for his size and strength.

“He would always say he’s built for comfort, not for speed,” said Capt. Tim Greene, who oversaw physical training when Mozingo joined the department. Greene recalled a fire at a convenience store, during which he and another firefighter struggled with moving a cooler.

“We couldn’t budge it, so we called Chuck over,” he said. “And of course he moves it right out of the way.”

Driver/engineer Jaime Crum recalled a vehicle fire she and Mozingo responded to.

“When we got there, Capt. Blackwell said push the fire away from the other vehicle,” she said. “What he meant was use the hose and the water to keep the fire away from the other vehicle.”

Mozingo, being the gentle giant who didn’t know his own strength, instead used his hands and pushed the burning car away from the other vehicle, Crum said.

“It’s burning, and he’s just trying to push the car away,” she said laughing.

As much as Mozingo loved being a firefighter, his family always came first. Jadwinski recalled Mozingo talking to his father every morning and afternoon, and answering his dad’s calls, “Hey, Pop!” On the phone he called his wife “Baby Doll” and his son Jake “Big Boy,” and he often let his fellow firefighters take part in the calls with his family.

Mozingo was non-confrontational and never liked to ruffle feathers, his fellow firefighters say. Jadwinski remembered painting one of the fire stations, and it was evident that one firefighter had never painted before.

“He even said, ‘I’ve never painted before,’” Jadwinski said. “Chuck turned and said, ‘Yeah, I know.’ He let him do it, but then after that other firefighter went away, Chuck went back and fixed it.”

Mozingo was just as quiet about his cancer battle, said Channell, who talked regularly with Mozingo while he was hospitalized at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.

“Every time I called him and talked to him, he didn’t get on the phone and tell me that he was hurting or tell me that he was sick,” Channell said. “The first question out of his mouth was, ‘How’s the shift?’ or ‘How are the guys?’ He wanted to know about everybody else and how everybody else was doing. He’s ultimately fighting for his life, and not once did I ever hear him complain.”

One running joke was that the fires were “scared” of Mozingo, who was affectionately called “a white cloud” because many of the department’s biggest calls seemed to happen when Mozingo wasn’t working. Even the fires Mozingo responded to on duty seemed to burn themselves out by the time the trucks arrived.

“Every time Chuck took off, there was a big fire,” Deputy Chief Mark Simmons said. “If Chuck was on duty, when you got there, the fire was out.”

Mozingo died Thursday, and his fellow A-shifters had to work Friday. So it was fitting, Channell said, that Friday’s shift was a busy one that included a large structure fire.

“That structure fire (call) came in and I turned the corner,” he said. “I saw the smoke column and was like, ‘Really, Chuck?’ ”

This story was originally published July 18, 2016 at 8:00 PM with the headline "‘The gentle giant’: Rock Hill firefighter remembered for strength, kind heart."