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New York Times photojournalist Joao Silva was embedded with the U.S. military in Afghanistan when a land mine blew his legs off last year. Earlier this month, he made his first trip back to New York and gave a speech at the Bronx Documentary Center, in which he explained what happened.
I heard the mechanic click. I knew: this is not good. And I found myself lying face-down on the ground, engulfed in a cloud of dust, with the very clear knowledge that this has just happened and this is not good. I could see my legs were gone, and everybody around me was dazed. I was like, “Guys, I need help here.” And they turned around and saw me on the ground. They immediately sprang into action. I got dragged out of the kill zone, for safety reasons, to a patch of ground a few yards away.
Immediately, there were medics working on me. I picked up a camera, shot a few frames. The frames weren’t very good, quite frankly, but I was trying to record. I knew it wasn’t good, but I felt alive. Adrenaline kicked in. I was compos mentis; I was on top of things. So, I made some pictures. I dropped the camera, then I moved to Plan B, which was to pick up the satellite phone. I called my wife, Vivian, and told her, “My legs are gone, but I think I’m going to live.” Incidentally, I’m a father of two. I passed the telephone on to the correspondent so she could continue the conversation and keep Vivian calm.
Silva also talks about his recovery, the importance of photojournalism in dangerous places, and what he’s learned about the lingering effects of war. A gallery of his photographs accompany the article. Link -via The Daily What
(Image credit: Joao Silva for the New York Times)
Unemployed and uninsured, 41-year-old Kathy Myers couldn’t afford to get her injured shoulder treated, so she came up with a radical plan: she shot herself to get free medical care!
Kathy Myers’ troubles started when her 80-lb Golden Lab yanked on his leash during a skirmish with her Chihuahuas. The big dog yanked Myer’s shoulder as well, injuring her rotator cuff.
After a month of agonizing pain, the unemployed 41-year-old used her in-laws’ gun to take matters into her own hands. She placed icepacks and pillows around her head and neck, and then pulled the trigger, according to Wood TV 8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Myers says she made a rational choice: she had hoped that the doctors who mended her flesh wound would also fix her rotator cuff.
Alas, the plan backfired:
Last Thursday doctors treated the bullet wound, but instead of fixing her injured shoulder, they gave her some antiinflammatory drugs and sent her home.
Though shooting yourself to get medical care may seem a bit extreme, Myers told reporters at WSBT-TV in South Bend, Ind., that she has no "suicide wish" and that she "wants to live" despite her problems.
And her problems may only be increasing. Besides being in even greater pain, Myers might have to go before a judge to face a charge of firing a weapon within city limits.
Aina Hunter of CBS News has more: Link (Photo: CBS)
Sisso the swift was found with a damaged wing seven months ago. The little bird has healed, but must learn to fly all over again with some inventive physical therapy. Sisso takes flying lessons suspended from a custom-made sling!
The swift is being treated at an Israeli animal hospital and it is thanks to this ingenious device – which resembles a mobile in a child’s bedroom – that he can practise flying.
Fitting snugly into a red tube-like vest made of bandages and gauze pads, Sisso has holes for his head, wings, feet and tail.
A string is fixed to the harness and attached to the ceiling which allows him to whizz around a room at the Ramat Gan Safari Park Animal Hospital without falling to the floor.
However, until the muscles in his weakened right wing become strong enough, he will be kept indoors and in the sling.
Sisso will be freed when he can fly normally again. Link -via mental_floss
Fido may be cute – but according to epidemiologist Judy Stevens of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) injury center, it is also a walking and barking hazard to your health:
America’s dogs and cats, it turns out, can be blamed for injuries caused in an estimated 86,000 falls treated each year in the country’s emergency rooms, federal health officials said today.
Nearly 88 percent of those injuries come at the paws of man’s best friend, who’s more apt to wound the fairer sex, epidemiologists report in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). About a quarter of those spills occur when a pet owner is walking his or her dog, and twice as many women as men are hurt.
