The Election

I am thankful that I have already voted. I voted by way of my moral values and the way that I felt I had to vote. I was adopted right after birth. I am thankful that my mother chose life over abortion. Otherwise I would not be here today. I cannot therefore vote for a person who says, "I do not want my child to have a child because of a mistake." Um last time I checked, it is quite simple to prevent that from happening. Keep your pants on.

It is time for this country to return to its roots and remember that we were founded as a nation under God.

September 11th`

This post is a little late but I feel I must at least say thank you to all of those who serve our country, whether they be firefighters, soldiers, Police, or medical personnel. Thank you for all that you do.

CPR

I have had to do CPR on many occasions. The majority of the time it has been either in the hospital setting or in an EMS setting. However, the one that I remember the most actually happened too close to home. I was at home taking care of my two children at the time when one of our neighbor's son came running over to the house. He came running up saying that he did not think that his mother was breathing. I yelled to my daughter to stay in the house and keep her brother in the house, and ran to my neighbors house. When I entered the house I immediately started calling out to my neighbor and she was unresponsive in the middle of the room. I quickly pulled her down to the floor and opened her airway. She was not breathing and I could not find a pulse. I immediately told the son to call 911. I then began CPR. I did not think twice about it. I made sure that the dispatchers could hear that cpr was in progress in the hopes of having initial responders move as quickly as possible. (Hey five minutes can be a long time when doing one rescuer cpr.) I was fortunate that by the time that the first police officer arrived I had re-established a pulse and she was starting to breath on her own. I still worked to protect her airway because she was unable to do this on her own. I then turned over care to the EMS providers who transported her to the local hospital.

What kind of fighter jet are you

What military aircraft are you? F/A-22 Raptor You are an F/A-22. You are technologically inclined, and though you've never been tested in combat, your very name is feared. You like noise, but prefer not to pollute any more than you have to. And you can move with the best.

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NILMDTS

For those of you not familiar with what NILMDTS is I will enlighten you.  It is an organization of approximately 5,000 photographers who volunteer their services within their communities to parents who experience the loss of a young child who is either stillborn or has a condition that is not compatible with life.  

This past week I had the honor of working with a family whose child was stillborn.  I received the call at about 5:30 in the morning and quickly agreed to come in.  It did not take me a second to think about it.  I knew that this is something that I had to do as time is very sensitive in these cases.  You literally have to be able to drop what you are doing and rush to the hospital and help take care of this family.  

I was fortunate that this was the hospital that I used to work in the ER for so, I quickly arrived and went up to the Labor and Delivery unit.  It was still night shift so I met with the nurses and then went in to talk with the family.  

I explained my forms that I am required to have the parents take care of and talked with them for a few minutes while I set up my equipment.  I then worked with the family to create several incredible images.  To say that this was one of the most difficult things to shoot is an understatement.  I worked with the mother, father and the baby's sister.  We did a few family images and then I worked with the little baby boy on his own.  

I then loved on the family for a few minutes and then left them to be taken care of by the nurse that was in the room with the family.

When I arrived back at our house I loved on my children and my wife.  I feel so blessed to have three wonderful healthy children and a loving wife.  I quickly worked through the day and into the next day to edit the images to present them to the family.  Technically I have 8 weeks to edit and return them to the family but I feel that the family should be able to have these images in time for the funeral if they so choose.

I can not say enough that God is a large part of me being able to work through this session.  I was praying constantly to take care of the family and of this little one who is with God for the entire time.

 

THe Beginning

Hi everyone.  I am a professional photographer who used to have a day job in the emergency room.  These are stories from both my professional photography career and also stories from my experiences in the emergency room.