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Honey Dew Donuts® in the news
Doughnut chain honors Cranston man for saving woman's life
BY BARBARA POLICHETTI
Friday, February 17, 2006
CRANSTON -- "Don't let go, I've got you."
With those words, Jay Johansen carried a woman down a smoke-filled stairway last month while fire ate away at the apartment house on Richard Street.
Johansen, 35, a state correctional officer, has been credited with saving the second-floor tenant and with rousing the other occupants and helping to shepherd them to safety in the early hours of Jan. 4.
The Cranston man's actions earned him plaudits from city fire officials and yesterday the praise was echoed by executives from Honey Dew Donuts who honored him with the corporation's new "Dew Good Award."
The award was presented to Johansen during a brief ceremony yesterday at the Honey Dew Donuts on Reservoir Avenue where Johansen usually gets his morning cup of coffee -- and where he'll never have to pay for another cup again.
"We're awarding him a free cup of coffee every day for life," Dick Bowen, founder, president and chief executive officer of Honey Dew said a couple of days before the ceremony.
"We had heard that he loves our coffee and wanted to make sure he is able to enjoy it, and also to stay pumped up and have the energy to do other heroic things if he has to."
Bowen said that Honey Dew, based in Plainville, Mass., and has about 150 franchise stores in New England, established the Dew Good Award about four months ago at the suggestion of a staff member.Johansen is the second honoree, he said. The first was a man who jumped into a pond in Massachusetts to save a woman from drowning.
"These first two awards are being given to people who have done truly exceptional things and gone way beyond the call of duty," Bowen said. "But we also envision future awards given to people who make a difference in other ways too, such as a school teacher or a coach."
Johansen's heroism was underscored yesterday when James Gumbley, Cranston's interim fire chief, brought a tape of the 911 phone call that Johansen had made the night of the fire.
Johansen had not disconnected the call to emergency headquarters when he tried to get people out of the Richard Street house and then fought his way through black smoke to get to the woman who lived on the second floor.
"Get out! Come, on, get out of the house now!," Johansen can be heard yelling as he ran around the house in the city's Auburn neighborhood.
He repeatedly tried to coax the second-floor tenant, whom officials did not identify, down the stairway. Then there are sounds of Johansen struggling for breath and gagging and coughing as he enters the building and struggles to find his way up the stairs.
In the background, there is the high-pitched sound of smoke detectors and the voice of a woman sobbing, "Oh my God, Oh my God."
Both of them are choking and coughing as Johansen is heard bringing her down the stairs.
"I'm looking forward to meeting Mr. Johansen," Bowen said. "I just want to shake his hand and say that, since we do business in Cranston, I'm happy as heck that he's here."
Source: Cranston Herald
