MC Photo wrote:
It's clear the photographer's story is BS, but that's irrelevant.


To the people who are saying he should have done something, are you saying that if I was there without a camera, I'd have an ethical/moral obligation to most likely commit suicide because I saw this guy on the tracks?

The idea that anyone "should" have tried to help is flat out wrong.

All professional training is that you do not risk your life to save another.


I worked as an EMT for 5 years, I've been under trains...

I agree with everything said in this long, but well-thought post.

MC Photo wrote:
It's clear the photographer's story is BS, but that's irrelevant.

To the people who are saying he should have done something, are you saying that if I was there without a camera, I'd have an ethical/moral obligation to most likely commit suicide because I saw this guy on the tracks?

The idea that anyone "should" have tried to help is flat out wrong.

All professional training is that you do not risk your life to save another.
.....
...
....

Not pointing the finger at anyone here (especially the photographer), but 22 seconds...I can run a well over 150 yards in 22 seconds? We are talking about 50 feet and nobody moved. What they did was nothing....from my life experience I would expect nothing more.

I respect your opinions, but professionals and none professionals risk their lives and die every day to save people in need. What we are taught and what we do comes down to who we are and how we are wired. This does not mean good or bad rather the decision we make. I have seen professionals of both types, though most pros act quickly and decisively.

People as a whole are sheep and sheep do not decide anything....Attend any car accident and you will see mostly sheep and very few shepherds. The shepherds are not better people, but they are people of action.

Different crisis spawns different behavior...If that were a child on the tracks people would have reacted differently.

From the photograph and timeline all I see is opportunity and life needlessly lost.

Just my take

4 R D wrote:
looks like MM is full of heroes! too bad none of them happened to be in the station to prevent this tragedy.

I have to agree as I would of used my camera too, but by it's straps for him to grab onto and yanked him up if possible..  I believe in my heart and in how I feel about most people's own heart if one had lead the try others would of joined in....

BobbyAnthony wrote:
but I have read (which I also dont put much stock into) it was about 22 seconds for the ordeal (push till hit) which is not a very long time

Oh paleeeeeeeze... sit there and count to 22 and see just how long that is... that's alot of fuckin time for SOMEBODY to bust a move and help that guy out...

Bunny 007 wrote:
How far is the train from the guy on the tracks?  Say 25 feet, for the sake of argument?  The train is probably braking and so decelerating... let us assume that its average speed between where it is in the picture and the bloke on the tracks is 15 m.p.h.  At 15 m.p.h. the train will cover approx. 22.5 feet per second, which means that if someone got there and got hold of the guy at the very instant the picture was taken, he'd have a fraction over 1 second to get him up and clear before probably being pulled under wih him.

Bystanders will not have bothered with the maths, but a glance at the scene is enough to evaluate their chances.

The train enters the station at a speed that is faster than I have ever witnessed a human run in person. I'm pretty sure it's faster than Hussein Bolt too.

I'm pretty sure you've underestimated the speed of the train.

JGC Photography wrote:

Not pointing the finger at anyone here (especially the photographer), but 22 seconds...I can run a well over 150 yards in 22 seconds? We are talking about 50 feet and nobody moved. What they did was nothing....from my life experience I would expect nothing more.

I respect your opinions, but professionals and none professionals risk their lives and die every day to save people in need. What we are taught and what we do comes down to who we are and how we are wired. This does not mean good or bad rather the decision we make. I have seen professionals of both types, though most pros act quickly and decisively.

People as a whole are sheep and sheep do not decide anything....Attend any car accident and you will see mostly sheep and very few shepherds. The shepherds are not better people, but they are people of action.

Different crisis spawns different behavior...If that were a child on the tracks people would have reacted differently.

From the photograph and timeline all I see is opportunity and life needlessly lost.

Just my take

I think everything you've said is accurate except for the last sentence.

I think that most people would be unable to pull themselves back on to the platform themselves given an unlimited amount of time. I think there are some people who could do it if they had no time limit, or maybe 5-10 minutes. I'm sure there are some athletes and guys who do parkour who could get out quickly, although it would be hard to get a running start.

For whatever reason, I picture saving the guy as meaning climb down on to the tracks too. I guess because of the first photo where he's on the ground - that's when you'd have to start moving, so that's what would have to be on your mind to start.

It would also be very possible to be killed if you were bent over helping him as the train passed by. He could have pulled you in on top of him, and if you'd gotten him part way out when the train hit him, that could easily result in you being killed.

I think if you had two exceptionally strong people - one grabbing each of his arms and two people holding them, you could pull him out quickly - like one quick tug. I don't know if you could get everyone on the same page and in position fast enough or if there were even enough people there who were strong enough.



I doubt the 22 seconds is accurate unless it came from surveillance tapes. Assuming that's the case, that's the amount of time the surveillance camera "had". People may not have realized what had happened in the first second and if they were far enough back not down the plat form, but away from it, they might not have been able to see him on the tracks. So there are lots of people who probably had less than 22 seconds to react.

Also, the photos we see are after he's on the tracks. How many seconds was he there before the photographer realized what had happened and also that there was urgency. The train is not visible in the first photo.

Select Models wrote:

Oh paleeeeeeeze... sit there and count to 22 and see just how long that is... that's alot of fuckin time for SOMEBODY to bust a move and help that guy out...

Assuming you saw him the moment it happened.

If someone gasped, you'd turn towards the gasp. It's very possible you only would have had 15 seconds with maybe only 5 seconds of awareness that the train was coming.

FemmeArtPhoto wrote:

Not manslaughter--murder

Manslaughter...look up the definition

Untitled Photographer wrote:
This thread is evidence to the fact that a photo tells a story, but not a complete one.

amen

JGC Photography wrote:
I hear you Zach, but I never suggested this was a black and white thing nor that I could save this fellow.
We aren't talking about 150 yards rather 50 feet or less...Had I have seen him I would have tried, but I am not stupid nor would not have climbed onto the tracks with him. Yes, that could get you pulled into the train. Some things are worth the risk.

My line of work placed me among many terrible industrial accidents and by a twist of fate on a stretch of road famous for horrific car wrecks...Hence my comments on the sheep. I have OFA3 and EMR training (not as a profession), but to help when I am there and shit has happened...I seem to be a magnet for this sort of thing.

I have read the psychology on why those of us that help choose do so and while there is a shard of truth there I ask...does it really matter what inspires your helper as he pulls you from a burning car?

Many years ago I watched the life leave a man's eyes and I am forever changed. In case you were wondering...Something does leave...One second you are holding a dieing man, the next you are holding his empty shell. There is more going on here than we know...It is as spooky as it is profound.

More than anything I intend to leave this planet in a better place than where I found it...Helping your common man... Other than raise your children well, there is nothing you can do of greater significance.

Just my thoughts and life experience.
Peace

Had you seen him when? At what point in the 22 seconds do you think you would have seen him? At what point in the 22 seconds is it too late?

The thing that bothers me about your post is your absolute certainty that you would have done something. I've done all sorts of reckless, stupid things in life and death situations, like break up an armed robbery and chase the gunman down the street. That was flat out stupid and I realized it when he went around the corner and I had no way to know if he'd stopped and turned around. I've been in a high speed chase through manhattan, I climbed out a 5th story windows into a FDNY cherry picker while doing CPR. I know how I react and I've had the experience to limit my adrenaline and stay clear headed, but I have no sense of what I'd do.

What I picture is looking at the situation and trying to digest it, trying to find some idea of how to help and at best yelling lie down. Then imagine his reaction would be to turn and listen and then get hit.

I just don't believe that anyone can honestly say what they would have done and I say that from the point of view of having been in plenty of situations and knowing my consistent reaction.

For all you know if you had been there with your instinct to help, you would have intervened earlier when the homeless guy was agitated and it would have been you pushed on the tracks.

It seems to me that everyone should know better than to question bystander's lack of helping from the point of view of hindsight especially when it was unanimous. There's no one else visible in the last photo, so even at 21 seconds in, no one is anywhere near him.

o k u t a k e wrote:
As a photojournalist your first instinct is to take a photo. There are photos that would have been missed if the photographer helped instead that have guided public opinion and changed the world. I'm not saying what happened is right, but perhaps this photo will help in the cause to put up barriers that will stop other subway accidents that annually occur here in NYC. So perhaps the photographer didn't do as much as he could for one guy, but he may save more lives on the whole.

A good photojournalist is more interested in influencing humanity than in helping a human.  This photo is an egregious example of that ethic, but it's not that difficult to find other examples fairly regularly.  Everyone has different values and morals, and I'd be the last person to claim that "different than mine" equates to "wrong," but that's why I could never be a photojournalist.

MC Photo wrote:
Had you seen him when? At what point in the 22 seconds do you think you would have seen him? At what point in the 22 seconds is it too late?

The thing that bothers me about your post is your absolute certainty that you would have done something. I've done all sorts of reckless, stupid things in life and death situations, like break up an armed robbery and chase the gunman down the street. That was flat out stupid and I realized it when he went around the corner and I had no way to know if he'd stopped and turned around. I've been in a high speed chase through manhattan, I climbed out a 5th story windows into a FDNY cherry picker while doing CPR. I know how I react and I've had the experience to limit my adrenaline and stay clear headed, but I have no sense of what I'd do.

What I picture is looking at the situation and trying to digest it, trying to find some idea of how to help and at best yelling lie down. Then imagine his reaction would be to turn and listen and then get hit.

I just don't believe that anyone can honestly say what they would have done and I say that from the point of view of having been in plenty of situations and knowing my consistent reaction.

For all you know if you had been there with your instinct to help, you would have intervened earlier when the homeless guy was agitated and it would have been you pushed on the tracks.

It seems to me that everyone should know better than to question bystander's lack of helping from the point of view of hindsight especially when it was unanimous. There's no one else visible in the last photo, so even at 21 seconds in, no one is anywhere near him.

Sorry but I am sure a few of us here have seen fair share and I do see your point being and EMT. That said all call outs,,, you pretty much know what's happening and plan on the way kinda thing which is very different then GO.
  I do realize some people can/will GO and others cant/freeze,,, I also know it take a Go person to start then maybe some will unfreeze and help. People on the dock all may have been frozen.. The sick thing is (and the problem I have) the photographer seen what was happening/ was not frozen or helping in anyway//watching and working his camera.

Can only answer for myself like everyone else,, I would have tried/done something to help in 21 seconds...

E H wrote:

Sorry but I am sure a few of us here have seen fair share and I do see your point being and EMT. That said all call outs,,, you pretty much know what's happening and plan on the way kinda thing which is very different then GO.
  I do realize some people can/will GO and others cant/freeze,,, I also know it take a Go person to start then maybe some will unfreeze and help. People on the dock all may have been frozen.. The sick thing is (and the problem I have) the photographer seen what was happening/ was not frozen or helping in anyway//watching and working his camera.

Can only answer for myself like everyone else,, I would have tried/done something to help in 21 seconds...

You can't know that you would have known what was going on in 22 seconds. I don't mean that you'd freeze, I mean that if you didn't see him fall, you'd hear something and look towards the sound which most likely would be someone reacting to seeing him pushed. If you're not within a couple of feet from the edge of the platform you can't see the tracks. It could easily take you 10-15 seconds of looking around before it's a question of whether you would do something.

I don't see how you can decide that someone else has an obligation to risk their life, putting themselves in front of a subway to save someone else.

If you only got him part way out, both of you are dead. If you got him all of the way out, but are too close to the train when it passes, you're dead. If you get there in 1 second and the guy on the tracks is not clear headed enough to do what he needs to do, then you're both dead when he gets hit. The platform is much higher than it looks and there's no wall, it's an overhang. It's much harder to climb out from the tracks than it is to climb out of a swimming pool.

MC Grain wrote:
With that photo, Kevin Carter single-handedly invalidated the lives and work of pretty much anyone who's ever seen the photo. That's going to bring you some very troubling negativity.

Really?
The surgeons, physicians, and nurses I work with dont seem to have had their lives "invalidated". 
The patients we treat seem to be valid.
The lives we save, even though they are not starving (usually) are still lives and still have value to the patients and their families.


I think you pushed hyperbole well into the land of fiction with that comment.


My two cents.  YMMV
Daeda1us

MC Photo wrote:
Did you know that the victim had been drinking? That's a whole other level of difficulty in getting him out. You wouldn't necessarily have known that then, but common sense in that particular case was that trying to help would get you killed and that's one more indication that anyone who believed that was right.

Maybe there would be 2 dead,,, maybe someone tried to save someone or maybe someone saved someone is what I say. I will live and sleep with that... You are using time like going on a call-out, it's not a 5- 10 min ride...
  You have to answer the question for yourself and live and sleep with it...

MC Photo wrote:
I assume everyone heard about the crank call by the DJs pretending to be the queen and the resulting suicide, right?

Do you remember baby Jessica down the well 15-20 years ago? The guy who saved her ended up committing suicide too.

It's something to think about.

Something to think about,,,, Well what about this,,, we are talking about one bad thing and now you add more bad things and in fact growing the evil as was said.
  Have you ever noticed this always happens when bad things happen,,, but never when something good happens.
  What if we put this stuff in bottles,,,, so now we have bottles and bottles FULL of bad/evil sh*t and a few bottles with a single item...  Your brain stores memory bottles in your mind,,,, that only you have to live with and answer to yourself for,,, if no one else...

E H wrote:

Something to think about,,,, Well what about this,,, we are talking about one bad thing and now you add more bad things and in fact growing the evil as was said.
  Have you ever noticed this always happens when bad things happen,,, but never when something good happens.
  What if we put this stuff in bottles,,,, so now we have bottles and bottles FULL of bad/evil sh*t and a few bottles with a single item...  Your brain stores memory bottles in your mind,,,, that only you have to live with and answer to yourself for,,, if no one else...

No one writes about happiness. They just enjoy it, and when its done, its gone. You notice that all stories have some kind of conflict? Its not that we can't enjoy a story without conflict, its just that we're so predisposed to doom ourselves to pain and suffering that we pretend its a fact of nature. For every yin there is a yang, if people can spend their entire lives wallowing in suffering then its also possible for people to spend their entire lives in peace and joy. Buddha knew this, Lao Tzu knew this, Jesus knew this, and they were all on separate parts of the world. But everyone was just melodramatic fuckheads, they killed jesus, made buddha out to be a god and called Lao Tzu a hypocrite. No one wants to hear that theres no "good reason" for their suffering.

Ben Hinman wrote:
No one writes about happiness. They just enjoy it, and when its done, its gone. You notice that all stories have some kind of conflict? Its not that we can't enjoy a story without conflict, its just that we're so predisposed to doom ourselves to pain and suffering that we pretend its a fact of nature. For every yin there is a yang, if people can spend their entire lives wallowing in suffering then its also possible for people to spend their entire lives in peace and joy. Buddha knew this, Lao Tzu knew this, Jesus knew this, and they were all on separate parts of the world. But everyone was just melodramatic fuckheads, they killed jesus, made buddha out to be a god and called Lao Tzu a hypocrite. No one wants to hear that theres no "good reason" for their suffering.

The concept of Yin-Yang used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn in relation to each other. It is more like you have one usable grain for every field of unusable of grain so light is taken in shadow and not the balance that should be.
What if you didn't have to believe in Jesus, Buddha OR  Lao Tzu ,,, what if it was as simple as if you know/hear of one bad thing today pay it forward in good. One bad thing happens X amount hear about it,,  and it pays forward X to the power of x times, simple,easy and not much time needed, just something little,,, after awhile maybe we more and more usable grain out of the field.

E H wrote:

Something to think about,,,, Well what about this,,, we are talking about one bad thing and now you add more bad things and in fact growing the evil as was said.
  Have you ever noticed this always happens when bad things happen,,, but never when something good happens.
  What if we put this stuff in bottles,,,, so now we have bottles and bottles FULL of bad/evil sh*t and a few bottles with a single item...  Your brain stores memory bottles in your mind,,,, that only you have to live with and answer to yourself for,,, if no one else...

To be honest, your writing prevents me from understanding what you're saying.

There really was nothing evil about what happened in the subway, just tragic and unfortunate.

If there's anything evil it's the responses directed at the photographer - the only person singled out as someone who should have risked their life and most likely died. And a bunch of people who know their playing armchair quarterback and continue to claim they would have single handedly saved the guy on the tracks.

When you make out victim as a responsible party, that's evil.

By being there, the photographer was a victim. If he hadn't shot, he'd still have seen it and still had nightmares and PTSD that comes with it. What he's experiencing is far worse and if he were to commit suicide it would be from the cumulative effect of everyone who's accused him of doing something wrong.

Let's see if he's still around in 3-6 months. I know I haven't said anything bad about him, certainly not anything evil.

MC Photo wrote:
Had you seen him when? At what point in the 22 seconds do you think you would have seen him? At what point in the 22 seconds is it too late?

The thing that bothers me about your post is your absolute certainty that you would have done something. I've done all sorts of reckless, stupid things in life and death situations, like break up an armed robbery and chase the gunman down the street. That was flat out stupid and I realized it when he went around the corner and I had no way to know if he'd stopped and turned around. I've been in a high speed chase through manhattan, I climbed out a 5th story windows into a FDNY cherry picker while doing CPR. I know how I react and I've had the experience to limit my adrenaline and stay clear headed, but I have no sense of what I'd do.

What I picture is looking at the situation and trying to digest it, trying to find some idea of how to help and at best yelling lie down. Then imagine his reaction would be to turn and listen and then get hit.

I just don't believe that anyone can honestly say what they would have done and I say that from the point of view of having been in plenty of situations and knowing my consistent reaction.

For all you know if you had been there with your instinct to help, you would have intervened earlier when the homeless guy was agitated and it would have been you pushed on the tracks.

It seems to me that everyone should know better than to question bystander's lack of helping from the point of view of hindsight especially when it was unanimous. There's no one else visible in the last photo, so even at 21 seconds in, no one is anywhere near him.

My assumption is I would have similar time to react as did the photographer. If you look at the action between frames significant time passed. Was it enough? I don't know....I wasn't there. I never suggested I would have absolutely rescued the victim. Having seen the victim on the tracks I would have moved closer to sort out what might be done....shouted direction to the victim, but if I deemed rescue to be futile my decision would be made at spatter range.

With regard to bystanders lack of action. I do not blame them or judge them, but I seriously doubt the general public's ability to react to such a situation with any amount of notice....Feeling this way I consider it my job to do everything I can until the professionals arrive.

Could this cost me my life?...Yes I suppose it could.
Had I intervened with the homeless guy it might have been me on the tracks...I would rather go out like that than have to live with myself for doing nothing...While I can overlook this in others I could never forgive myself.

Given any reasonable amount of time I doubt you would do anything different.
If you didn't see victim until the last photograph...well there is nothing you could do.

I agree...We never know how we might react or what we may or may not do, but to do nothing is not within me.

E H wrote:
The concept of Yin-Yang used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn in relation to each other. It is more like you have one usable grain for every field of unusable of grain so light is taken in shadow and not the balance that should be.
What if you didn't have to believe in Jesus, Buddha OR  Lao Tzu ,,, what if it was as simple as if you know/hear of one bad thing today pay it forward in good. One bad thing happens X amount hear about it,,  and it pays forward X to the power of x times, simple,easy and not much time needed, just something little,,, after awhile maybe we more and more usable grain out of the field.

The tao does not apply to "good" and "evil", as they are abstractions created from human constructs. The tao is an idea, a binary representation of our universe created long before anyone even knew what binary code or a quark was... Yang is the light cascading on a mountainside and yin is the dark shadow cast on the other. As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, yin and yang change places, obscuring what was revealed and revealing what was obscured. There is a balance in that. Every part of the mountainside sees light, and the darkness represents not evil, but mystery. Suffering is to stand on the side that is shrouded in light and long to know what the darkness holds, but arriving there to find that the other side is now dark. It is our own light that creates the world, the infinite trying to witness itself. "Caught in desire, you only see the manifestations, free from desire, you realize the mystery." Until you can accept what is, and be content with it, you will spend your life chasing shadows and never catching them.