Jordan North is forced to defend himself following backlash after he was criticised for ‘jumping into the River Thames to save a drowning dog’

Jordan North was forced to defend himself from critics when he corrected the story that he jumped into the River Thames to save a drowning dog on Monday.

The 34-year-old Capital radio presenter was walking along the banks of the Thames, near his home in west London, at 4pm when he came across a Labrador struggles in the water.

The TV personality sprang into action and ran down the banks of the river to try to help the dog, but had to be rescued by the RNLI after he got into trouble.

On Wednesday morning, Jordan emphasized on his breakfast radio program that at no point did he go into the river to rescue the animal after it came under fire.

Jordan defended himself against suggestions of wasting the Coast Guard’s time or encouraging copycat behavior, saying he “would never have ended up in the river.”

He said: ‘A lot of people pretended I went into the river, which I would never have done and actually I just climbed over a fence, a wall…

‘Om naar een steiger te gaan en de hond eruit te halen, kwam ik vast te zitten op een balk en moest de RNLI mij en de hond komen redden. The RNLI has a video of it.’

Loads of press and people and Sky and LBC asking for an interview and I went to the gym yesterday and people came up to me, no one ever comes up to me in the gym. Jeremy, de taxichauffeur, zei vanochtend: “Dit is mijn schuld”, ik zei: “Nee, ik betaal”.

Jordan antwoordde bescheiden: ‘Eerlijk gezegd zeg ik het niet zomaar, het is allemaal buiten proporties opgeblazen. My mom Wendy is like a Northern Pam Shipman and she said, “What are you playing with, you could have drowned?”

‘Toen zei ze, en ik citeer: ‘Weet je wat ik vanochtend wakker werd en ik dacht dat ik Jordan moest bellen, er is iets niet in orde.’ I felt it in my water.’

Jordan joked that his dad said, “Is the dog okay?” then sent a thumbs up emoji when he heard this was the case.

A rescue boat crew was training nearby and arrived on the scene three minutes later to find Jordan sitting down with the dog on a nearby float lift.

The public helped by shining telephone flares on the star to help the rescue boat locate him and they quickly helped him and the dog onto their boat.

Jordan spoke about the terrifying incident on his Capital Breakfast show on Tuesday, giving ‘a Thank you very much and a huge shout out to RNLI Chiswick who came to my rescue as I was panicking a bit.”

‘I also got a bit nervous because I thought my legs were going to give out, I can’t hold on much longer, so they got there just in time.’

“The real heroes here are the RNLI who came out and grabbed me and put a blanket around me. They are the heroes.’

Jordan explained to his radio show co-hosts Sian Welby and Chris Stark how while out running he came across a ‘distressed’ woman who told him her dog was ‘drowning’ in the river below.

Jordan begaf zich naar een steiger waar hij over een poort van ruim 1,80 meter moest klimmen om er te komen. ‘I’m there by myself trying to grab the dog, while my light on my phone says ‘here boy, here boy’.’

‘But every time I try to grab him, the current takes him away and I thought I couldn’t get in. I walked onto the floating pontoon and I manage to grab the dog, he is panting and crying. His legs are gone and he is so tired. He’s been fighting this current for ten minutes.”

“But they can’t find me, this was a beautiful sight, everyone had the lights on on their phones.”

He added that it was “all so blurry” that he couldn’t even remember the name of the dog or its owner and walked home in his soaking wet clothes.

Thames Commander Gavin Simmons, along with crew Sid Blake, Tom Coe and Cameron Crawley, were the ones who pulled Jordan and the dog to safety.

Gavin said: ‘We are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to help anyone in difficulty on the water, even our beloved pets!

‘Although we always encourage people to call 999 and ask for the Coastguard rather than going into the water themselves, we are pleased that in this case we were able to help Jordan and the dog safely back to dry land.’

Jordan built his career at Radio 1 before his fame soared when he got a last-minute call to appear on the 2020 series of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here.

De DJ eindigde op de tweede plaats nadat hij met nog maar twee dagen te gaan was opgenomen in de serie in Wales. He won a legion of fans thanks to his terrified reaction to the show’s infamous trials.

Speaking after his triumphant run on the ITV reality series, Jordan told Radio 1: ‘I was at the last minute. I got a call asking, “Maybe next year, not this year,” and then two weeks later I got a call asking, “Do you want to do it? Someone quit.”

‘Then I had 2 days to do everything: medical care, photos, psychiatrists, etc. 48 hours. It almost never happened,” the radio host revealed.

Jordan also confessed that he worried a lot in the castle: “Am I going to have a career at the end of this?” They were the best, but also the toughest three weeks of my life.

‘We were cold, we were hungry. I thought the hunger would get better, but it got worse. You just wait. You can sunbathe in the jungle, but not in Wales. We were so bored.

Discussing the three-week whirlwind in Wales and how he survived the countless trials and challenges, Jordan explained that it was his brother and I’m A Celeb presenter Declan Donnelly whose words of wisdom helped him get through it.

He said of his first test – the Viper Vault – where he was in a box of snakes: “So my brother is a paratrooper. He knows when I’m having something like that, and he said, “If you’re cold, wet, or scared, go to your happy place.”

“So I’m sitting in this box full of snakes and I’m shouting, ‘Happy place Turf More.’ I don’t know if you know, but it took me an HOUR to get in. Without December I wouldn’t have done it. I left.’

There are many ways to support the RNLI’s volunteer lifeboat crews this Christmas. For more information, visit RNLI.org/WinterAppeal