Help Janay & family recover from blizzard tragedy

I'm Danielle Farris, and I started this fundraiser on December 29, 2022, to help Janay Johnson, my 22-year-old niece, and Erica Martino, my sister. A lot has happened since then, so I decided to take a moment to reflect on Janay's tragedy and what it has meant to my sister's little family. This is an introduction to the campaign that reflects Janay's progress as well as the challenges that lie ahead. Erica has also been posting terrific updates along the way and has more on tap. Thank you!

The evening of December 23, as Winter Storm Elliott was devastating much of the country, Janay was on her way home from a get-together with a group of friends out celebrating Christmas. She never made it home that night. Instead, in the confusion of people going their separate ways, she somehow ended up alone in one of the worst blizzards in more than a century.

We later learned that by the time a passerby saw her and called 911, Janay had been in the cold and wind for nearly three hours. When she arrived at the hospital she was unconscious and near death, with a body temperature of just 83 degrees. The emergency room doctor on duty told Erica to brace herself for the likelihood that Janay wouldn't survive. She did survive, though, and after spending weeks in the ICU burn unit at a level-1 trauma center and several more weeks at an inpatient physical rehabilitation unit, she finally made it home.

Janay's hospital stay is just part of the story. She is in constant, searing pain, and we now know that she will lose multiple fingers. She can't use her hands or bear any weight on her feet and requires daily painful dressing changes that takes my sister nearly three hours to perform. What happened to Janay is a tragedy, but it also has had ripple effects for the entire family. For the past several years, Janay has been the primary caregiver for her five-year-old niece Viviana, who has lived with Erica and Janay since birth and who happens to be both epileptic and severely autistic and needs extraordinary levels of care.

Because of Janay's injuries, Erica has had to take a leave of absence from her work as a skilled nurse in order to stay home and care for both Janay and Viviana. This, of course, has proven to be a financial hardship for the family. Your generosity will help my sister and niece as they try to move forward. Whenever I ask Erica about her and Janay's goals, she pauses before answering. So much remains uncertain. But she always says that while one of her own goals, of course, is to get back to the job she loves, the most important thing she can do is care for Viviana and help Janay restore some semblance of normalcy in their home.