Today’s On the Spot Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
On July 22, 1975, fire broke out in an apartment building on Boston’s Marlborough Street. Boston Herald photographer Stanley Forman was just about to leave his office when he heard the report and headed to the scene. When he arrived, he heard calls for a ladder truck and went around to the back of the building.
There he saw Diana Bryant, 19, standing on a fire escape five stories up with her two-year-old goddaughter Tiare Jones. Fireman Robert O’Neill initially told Bryant to pass Tiare to him while he was on the roof, but she was unable to do this so he climbed down onto the fire escape to help while they waited for the ladder. The turntable ladder was put in position and O’Neill got onto it and prepared to reach back for Bryant and the toddler. Just as he did so, the fire escape suddenly collapsed and Bryant fell fifty feet to the ground, where she sustained fatal injuries. Tiare Jones landed on her godmother and survived. Bob O’Neill managed to cling to the firetruck ladder with one arm and did not fall.
Forman had been photographing the proceedings with a motorized camera, assuming he was capturing images of a routine rescue. He remembered later that he did not want to see the victims hit the ground and that he turned away, shaking with horror. The black and white photo of the woman and the little girl falling from the collapsing fire escape, complete with tumbling plant pots, was reprinted around the nation and won a Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, and the World Press Photo of the Year in 1976. It also led to legislation regulating the condition and upkeep of fire escapes.
Culled from: Wikipedia
Submitted by: Aimee
And here’s the stunning sequence of photos:
They just don’t make photojournalists like that anymore…
Morbid Mirth Du Jour!
I can’t seem to find any information about where this comes from, but this graphic has been floating around the web and I just had to share. It’s good information for gentlemen (and gentlewomen) to keep on hand! (Ruthlessly swiped from Onorobo)
