Patrick Johnson

The gap: the man behind the biography footnote

Most profiles of Speaker Mike Johnson mention his father in a single line — a firefighter nearly killed in a facility explosion. The verified-but-undercovered story is what Pat Johnson did with the life he almost lost. His full name was James Patrick Johnson, and he was born on February 9, 1953, in Shreveport, Louisiana (Shreveport Times). He joined the Shreveport Fire Department in 1974, served on the Hazardous Materials Response team, and rose to the rank of Assistant Chief Training Officer, where he helped develop the continuing-education college program for the department (Shreveport Times).

Mike Johnson described his father’s rank in his first address as House Speaker in October 2023: “My dad was a firefighter. He was an assistant chief in the Fire Department in my hometown of Shreveport,” he told colleagues (Firehouse). The younger Johnson said that when he was 12, his father was critically burned and permanently disabled in the line of duty: “But after the explosion on that fateful day, he nearly died. It was a long road back and it’s changed all of our life trajectories” (Firehouse).

September 17, 1984: the Dixie Cold Storage explosion

On the afternoon of September 17, 1984, employees at the Dixie Cold Storage Company plant in Shreveport noticed a leak in the supply piping to the refrigeration unit inside the building; they evacuated and called the fire department (Firefighter Close Calls). At about 2:45 p.m., the fire department dispatched its fire and hazardous-materials units; Captain Percy Johnson and Assistant Chief Patrick Johnson — no relation, both certified Hazardous Materials Technicians — donned full Level A chemical protection suits and entered the building to shut off a valve to isolate the leak (Firefighter Close Calls).

While the two were working alone inside, the leaking anhydrous ammonia reached an unknown ignition source, and at 4:05 p.m. an explosion shook the building; a rescue team recovered both men, and both were rushed to LSU Medical Center in critical condition (Firefighter Close Calls). Captain Percy Johnson, age 32, succumbed to his burn injuries two days later on September 19 — the first Shreveport firefighter to die in the line of duty in forty-two years (Firefighter Close Calls). Pat Johnson survived but was severely burned and permanently disabled, forced to retire from the department (Firefighter Close Calls). Six other firefighters were also injured in the blast (Firefighter Close Calls). The Shreveport Times obituary called the fire “tragic” and described Captain Percy R. Johnson as Patrick’s friend and colleague (Shreveport Times).

A second career built from survival

The obituary reports that Johnson overcame a 5 percent chance to live, and that his survival story became the subject of the book Up from the Ashes (Shreveport Times). In 1985 he co-founded the nonprofit Percy R. Johnson Burn Foundation — named for the colleague who died in the blast — and served as its executive director (Shreveport Times). The foundation has served more than 15,000 burn patients and their families (Shreveport Times; Give for Good).

Its best-known program is Camp “I’m Still Me,” a camp for burn-injured children founded by the foundation in 1992 and held every June in Scottsville, Texas, at the Scottsville Camp and Conference Center (Give for Good). The camp accepts children ages 5 to 17 who have sustained burn injuries, from across Louisiana; the week-long experience is entirely free, funded by donations, and is staffed by members of the burn care team, teachers, firefighters, and adult burn survivors (Give for Good). The foundation also owns a small respite house near Ochsner LSU where family members of patients treated in the burn unit can stay free of charge (Give for Good).

Johnson also founded and served as president of PM Hazmat, Inc., which for more than 20 years developed and provided critical safety and emergency-response training programs and operational procedures for governments, industries, and public-safety organizations throughout the United States and around the world (Shreveport Times).

Legacy

Patrick Johnson died in Shreveport on December 8, 2016, after a long battle with cancer; his memorial service was held on December 12, 2016, at Calvary Baptist Church (Shreveport Times). He was survived by his wife, Janis Gabriel Johnson; his four children, including State Representative Mike Johnson (later elected to Congress and to the House speakership); his former wife and the mother of his children, Jeanne Johnson; and fourteen grandchildren (Shreveport Times). Mike Johnson said his father lived with pain for the rest of his life and was proud of his decision to go into politics: “It’s the beauty of America that allows a firefighter’s kid like me to come here and serve in this sacred chamber” (Firehouse).

What this profile does not claim

• It does not state a single burn-extent figure, because the sources disagree: Firefighter Close Calls says 72 percent in its lede and 30 percent third-degree plus 50 percent second-degree in its body; foundation listings say over 90 percent.
• It does not reconcile Firehouse’s quote of Mike Johnson — that he lost his father to cancer “three days before I got elected to Congress” — with the Shreveport Times obituary’s death date of December 8, 2016; the profile uses the obituary’s date.
• It does not assert details of the book Up from the Ashes beyond its subject, Patrick Johnson’s survival story.
• It does not use the garbled AI-generated 40th-anniversary piece, which confused the identities of Patrick and Percy Johnson.