Colorado Springs (Colo.) Mayor John Suthers, left, presented the Carnegie Medal to Carnegie Hero Ross A. Johnson at a June 26, 2018, city council meeting. Johnson, of Colorado Springs, received the Carnegie Medal in March 2018 after rescuing a woman from assault in March 2016. In Colorado Springs, a 65-year-old woman was in the driver’s seat of a car that was parked at a self-service car wash when her estranged husband in the front, passenger seat suddenly punched her in the face and stabbed her in the abdomen with a pocket knife. As the woman cried out for help and struggled with the assailant, Johnson, then 52, heard her cries and approached the car. At the open, front passenger door, Johnson shouted forcefully for the assailant to stop, prompting him to cease his attack and exit the vehicle. As the wounded woman began to exit the car through the open door, the assailant, who had remained at the door, grabbed her and stabbed her three more times before Johnson, several feet away, could intervene. After the woman collapsed outside the vehicle, Johnson pushed away the assailant, who had placed the knife down nearby. Johnson knelt beside her, putting himself between her and the assailant to prevent further injury to her. Johnson comforted the injured woman until police arrived shortly. Police arrested the assailant without incident. The woman spent eight weeks hospitalized and in rehabilitation, and suffered partial paralysis from her wounds. In a June 28 Facebook post about the presentation, Suthers thanked Johnson for his “courage, quick thinking, and compassion.”
Related articles:
- Carnegie Medal for Heroism presentation to Joseph D. Donnell
- Carnegie Medal for Heroism presentation to Robert M. Wilson, Jr. and Andrew Reischl
- Carnegie Medal presentation to Tyler Badet
- Carnegie Medal for Heroism presentation to the family of Anthony Diehl
- Carnegie Medal presentation to Stephen Rhodes
- Carnegie Medal presentation to Mickey Wilson
- Carnegie Medal presentation to Gerold Prather
- Carnegie Medal presentation to Lloyd Muldrow
- Carnegie Medal presentation to Kealii J. Akahane
- Carnegie Medal presentation to Kendall Reyes