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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)
Engineering students at Harvard University have developed a cell phone app that, when paired with an ordinary metal detector, can be used effectively to detect land mines. Instead of just beeping when it passes over a metal object, these enhanced metal detectors present the shape of the object found below ground:
Land mines, with their circular construction and trigger pin, have an ovoid signature. The system designed by Jayatilaka and Gajos shows one red dot for every beep of the metal detector. With passes over a buried object, the picture shows an increasingly complete outline of the object’s shape, giving the de-miner an evermore detailed picture of what may be buried there.
“Using only audio signals is a huge source of inefficiency. The operator has to figure out whether it is harmful or not harmful. If they are not completely sure, they have to go down on their hands and knees and excavate every piece of metal as if it were a land mine,” explained Jayatilaka.
The students hope that their invention can be used by cash-strapped de-mining operations around the world.
Link via Popular Science | Photo: Justin Ide/Harvard University
Morten Traavik, the artist who founded the Miss Landmine pageant in Angola (featured previously at Neatorama) also organized a similar beauty pageant in Cambodia. After expressing support for the contest, the Cambodian government has withdrawn permission.
An exhibition of photographs of the contests was due to open on Friday, with the top prize of an artificial leg for the winner of an internet vote. But over the weekend the government ordered the organisers “to stop activity immediately in order to keep the honour and dignity of handicapped Cambodians, especially women”.
Traavik has requested a meeting with authorities over the issue. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: Flickr user *christopher*)
