This photo, titled "Saving Lives", is featured in the WORKING chapter of Dancers Among Us.
My friend Kevin
Ban is a doctor at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston, and last year he got me access
to their Emergency Department. Welcoming me with open arms were volunteers,
nurses, residents and security personnel. I hoped to create an image that would honor their heroic work.
Fortunately, it
was a slow night in the ER. I asked the staff for a triage room, a bunch of
residents in scrubs, a heart monitor and a defibrillator. They made the room
look completely authentic, down to the mess on the floor, the activity around
the patient, and the placement of the defibrillators on his chest.
"You want blood? There should be lots of blood on the floor!"
I drew the line at blood.
Jim
Hennessey, a local photographer who was along for the ride, was kind enough to
volunteer for heart failure. Duncan Lyle was a dancer with Boston Ballet who
was about to move to American Ballet Theatre in New York City, so I allowed
myself to dream- maybe he could do the impossible and jump high enough to
seemingly levitate over the patient like a guardian angel.
