New London — On a night when the City Council declared him a New London hero, Craig Johnson's mind kept flipping back Monday to the crazy sequence of events that led him earlier this month to run down an embankment toward a burning truck to save a man's life.

"I kept looking around, and there's poison ivy everywhere, and I'm focusing on the poison ivy when there's a flaming truck right next to it," Johnson said in an interview after accepting a proclamation honoring his bravery. "I guess it was my mind's way of dumbing it down."

Johnson, a 47-year-old neurodiagnostic technologist, was heading to work at Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence when he saw smoke and then flames off the side of Interstate 95 in North Stonington on the morning of Sept. 4.

He and several other good Samaritans helped pull to safety the driver of a heavy-duty wrecker who had been lying by the truck's cab and was in danger of burning to death. The driver, 52-year-old John Martins of Pawtucket, R.I. had been returning home after responding to a bus accident in Groton when a tire blew in the area of Exit 92 and he lost control of his vehicle.

"I wasn't thinking. I was just reacting," Johnson told a crowd of about 50 people at the Council chambers in City Hall who rose in unison Monday to give him a standing ovation. "Everything happened so fast."

"Not only did he help; he became a New London hero," said City Councilor Anthony Nolan, who spoke after the proclamation honoring Johnson was read by City Councilor Efrain Dominguez Jr.

But Johnson was quick to point out other heroes. Three of them went down into the fire with him, Johnson said, including Ryan Getschis of North Stonington, and people of different ages, sexes and races all acted in concert, including Sherry Balcher of Westbrook and Leticia Orozco of East Lyme.

"That was a day that restored my faith in humanity," Johnson said.

Johnson said after the ceremony that he has heard from the driver's daughter that Martins, owner of Courtesy Auto Group and other enterprises in the Providence area, shattered his hip in the accident and has had two skin grafts so far. It may take months of recuperation, but Johnson said he believes Martins will recover.

"He's a fighter," Johnson said. "He's an amazing man."

Johnson's family thinks he's pretty amazing, too. Covered in blood and soot, Johnson still managed to go into work the day of the accident and put in nearly a full shift. He played the following night in the trio Monkey 68, and the next weekend performed as a bassist with the Rivergods.

"He can do that," said domestic partner Natasha Singer. "He's very good at taking action and has the ability to compartmentalize it if he wants to."

Singer's daughter Sophie, 10, made him a superhero's cape to honor his bravery, sewing SAM on the fabric, an acronym for Super Awesome Man.

Coincidentally, Johnson said he wrote a song about six weeks before the accident titled "Another Hero Dies" in honor of two musician friends who had recently passed away, Steve Kaika of The Reducers and New London rhythm-and-blues icon Karl Kelly.

Johnson knows it could have just as easily been him that day he ran down the embankment toward the flames. He used a utility knife to cut off the burning shoes of the man he saved, and he gave critical first aid that may have saved his life.

"I was scared," he admitted. "Tires were exploding all around us."

But then there were the little touches that dumbed down the moment once again, such as the rescuer whose foot gear slipped off on the trek up the embankment.

"I lost my flip-flops," the man said as he suddenly hesitated during the rescue.

"Keep going," Johnson urged before finding the flip-flops and tossing them up the hill.

As a worker used to functioning in emergency rooms and trauma units, Johnson is used to dealing with insane events, said his partner, Singer.

"He was the right person to deal with that," she said.

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow