Starbucks staff among people honored for righteous and courageous deeds

The two staff members at a Starbucks outlet near the downtown People’s Park, who helped douse a fire in a van, were among 21 good Samaritans honored on Friday for their righteous and courageous deeds.

The two men, Yu Fenghua, 35, and Ma Xiao, 29, helped in preventing a possible explosion on February 2 when a van caught fire, lost control and crashed into 17 pedestrians.

The situation was extremely urgent as the van carried a steel cylinder, six liquid gas storage tanks, three plastic bottles filled with gasoline and other inflammable and explosive materials.

Yu and Ma rushed out from the coffee shop with fire extinguishers, trying to put out the fire.

They had run back and forth twice, taken out a total of 10 extinguishers and put the fire under control together with two other passers-by before firefighters arrived and put out the fire completely.

Other honored people include men and women, young and old, who have stopped crimes or helped others out of danger, such as Xu Weikang, a 52-year-old sanitation worker in the Xingguang Village in Pudong.

Xu stopped a man from stealing a motorcycle parked at roadside around 5am on September 30 last year when he was cleaning the road.

They had a fight and the man caused a 20-centimeter-long wound in Xu's left harm with the screwdriver he used to break the motorcycle lock.

But Xu kept grasping the man and later sent him to police with help of other villagers. The man was sentenced to two years in prison in March.

Since the city set up a foundation in July 2014 to honor “righteous and courageous” people, a total of 264 people have been awarded.

Among them, 31 stopped crimes, 73 assisted in arresting criminal suspects and seven provided important clues for police to solve crimes.

Ninety-six heroes saved people from river and 50 people helped put out fires or saved people from fire. The rest seven were honored for other courageous acts.