Photojournalist - Mark Hertzberg - Behind the Viewfinder

June 23,1998

Today was another one of those up and down days. It ended on a glorious note when I went on a late evening bike ride through the city's dark streets as daylight tried to hang on just a wee bit longer around 9 p.m. I try to ride for an hour every morning, and my bonus comes on these delightful summer nights when I can get a second ride in.

As some of you know, I carry a couple of cameras on the back of my bike as I pedal my way to my annual 3,000-mile goal. They weigh me down some, but it's worth it...there are things you see on two wheels that you don't see from a car, and there are people you stop and talk to and get story ideas from that you'd just wave to if you were car cruising.


The last rays of daylight, during the week of summer solstice, are in the western skies over Racine, Wis. Monday June 22, 1998. Photo by Mark Hertzberg / Racine Journal Times Š1998

I hit the jackpot when I got to the mid-point of my ride, and looked back at the city from an overlook in the marina. The exposures were a a half second, but I was able to plunk the camera down on a concrete pillar and shoot away. We've never shown the readers this sunset view of the city before...if all goes well, it'll stretch across Wednesday morning's front page.

Today is Monday, though, and they first have to get through Tuesday's newspaper. There, on the local news cover, we will try to convey the horror of one of the worst car wrecks I have ever seen. I had taken a longer lunch break...that's anything more than five minutes...to take our youngest son, Aaron, 16, to get license plates for his first car. He's driving the beater Dad just retired, a 1986 diesel (no acceleration there, kiddo) Volkswagen Jetta that has 163,009 miles on it.

We fidgeted for 45 minutes at DMV until our turn finally came, he plunked down $50 bucks, and walked out with shiny new license plates for his "new" rusty car. His afternoon agenda was pretty clear...get the plates on the car, and pick up Amy, but that plan got sidetracked for more than two hours when I got a call about the accident.

We saw one ambulance wail past us as the firefighters radioed to the hospital that they had a "blue code," a patient who had stopped breathing. A call went out for a second ambulance. Then we saw what we didn't want to see...a woman driving a mini-van had ended up in a head-on collision with a dump truck that had the right-of-way. Her four-year-old son, who was in the first ambulance, was "flighted" (taken by Flight for Life helicopter) to Milwaukee Children's Hospital, 20 miles away, but died.

Aaron has heard me talk about accidents that I have covered, but has never seen the carnage first-hand. He borrowed my cell phone to call Amy and tell her he would be late, and then tried not to watch as it took rescue workers more than an hour to free the screaming mother from the wreckage.

Her legs were pinned by the engine which was pushed back by the impact. Rescuers peeled back the top of the van, like opening a sardine can. The morning paper, unread, with a rubber band still around it, fishing rods, and stuffed animals, one with the price tag still on it, were all pitched out of the van by the emergency crews to give them more room to work. Another Flight for Life helicopter landed nearby waiting to rush her to Milwaukee.

The Flight for Life helicopter pilot came up to me shortly before the mother was taken out of the wreckage and told me that she would be nude...emergency workers had to remove some of her clothes as they worked on her to stabilize her for transportation. I thanked him for the warning and walked away...I didn't have to have yet another stretcher shot for the paper. He thanked me afterwards for moving away, and I thanked him for having given me the heads-up.

Town of Caledonia firefighters peel back the roof of a mini-van that collided with a dump truck near Racine, Wis., as rescuers work to free the driver, Maria Cone, 41, from the wreckage, Monday afternoon June 22, 1998. Her legs were pinned by the engine compartment. Her son, Jonathan, 4, died from crushing injuries. Authorities said Cone apparently ran a stop sign. Photo by Mark Hertzberg / Racine Journal Times (c) 1998

My photos are two-dimensional. They may be dramatic, but they cannot convey the horror I felt. We chose a slightly less dramatic frame which does not show the mother (she is covered with a blanket here to shield her from broken glass) over the frames that show her contorted face. (It was a decision made to give her some measure of dignity). All I could think of was the unimaginable agony of this woman, screaming the whole time, as her child was dying, away from her. And I wondered about the bystanders who were there gaping...some of them with small children of their own.

The driver of a dump truck that collided with a mini-van, left, is comforted by a passerby, who was identified as a nurse (she would not give us her name). Photo by Mark Hertzberg / Racine Journal Times (c) 1998

My child was there, but not by choice. He embarks on a new road of life with this car. I never would've planned an afternoon like this for him, but if it had to happen, I wondered if there might be some good that might come from his being a witness to the horror.

Mark Hertzberg

June 23, 1998

Mark Hertzberg

< hertz@wi.net >
Director of Photography
Journal Times
Racine, Wisconsin

Other journals by Mark Hertzberg

363	May 2000	Three short topics
361	April 27, 2000	It's a moment frozen forever
359	April 18, 2000	I'm glad I wasn't working
346	February 18, 2000	Fatal Fire
343	January 28, 2000	Suicide By Cop
340	December 28, 1999	Four Minute Justice
338	December 11, 1999	In 1/125th of a second
336	December 4, 1999	Day in Court
332	Is Photojournalism Dead?Mark Hertzberg	On the flip side, though, many newspapers that have made a 180-degree change have changed for the better rather than for the worse
325	October 10, 1999	Oh, the people you meet
324	September 29, 1999	It was an innocent question from a high school clerk
309	July 23, 1999	I didn't mind Jerome Vine spit at me twice
307	July 21, 1999	"What have you done? What have you dragged us into?"
303	July 17, 1999	If your mother says she loves you, check it out
292	June 23, 1999	You Never Know
283	May 17, 1999	Epilogue to May 4, 1999
276	May 4, 1999	David Raymond Segura, Sr. walked out of the Racine County Jail to the cheers and hugs of his family
272	April 25, 1999	Littleton. Burlington.
265	April 18, 1999	"I can't believe I'm being paid to have fun. "
261	April 15, 1999	It was the first time...
257	March 26, 1999	The Supreme Court isn't sure I should have been able to shoot one of the most dramatic pictures I've ever taken.
248	March 13, 1999	I got nauseous on the job today...
247	March 12, 1999	The prosecution's case
246	March 12, 1999	Sidebar: One of the most difficult issues for us to consider
239	March 1, 1999	That's your guy.
222	February 11, 1999	It's a lie to say that pictures never lie, as our readers and viewers know all too well.
215	February 4, 1999	Remember report cards?
213	February 1, 1999	I saw something horrifying and shocking this week
198	January 8, 1999	Damn, it's hard to cover news stories when you know the people involved in them, and when you have to put aside personal feelings to get the story.
192	December, 1998	This journal is a tribute to you, the reader
180	November 29, 1998	Abortion. That's the only word you have to mention in any conversation, and emotions are aroused , so imagine what it's like trying to make newsroom decisions about how to cover the issue. That's where we found ourselves Thursday morning at the Racine Journal Times.
178	November 22, 1998	We Interrupt This Broadcast
176	November 18, 1998	Our big story last week, indeed perhaps our biggest of the year, was a story about something that DIDN'T happen.
175	November 16, 1998	Did We Overact?
174	November 8, 1998	Wednesday was the day the yellow smiley face from that big chain of stores from Arkansas frowned at me.
171	November 3, 1998	Monday Morning, Post Gore
170	November 2, 1998	I'm so excited, I won't be able to sleep tonight
158	October 12, 1998	It was one of those days when an assignment was as much fun as opening birthday presents.
157	October 10, 1998	He's a cop...
150	September 21, 1998	A friend of mine calls it the ultimate form of channel surfing. .
146	September 11, 1998	...sometimes we can have a positive effect on people's lives even when some readers think we are raking them over the coals. .
138	August 28, 1998	Sometimes the last thing a photographer wants to see is a camera.
120	July 25, 1998	They say that in England you are innocent until proven guilty; in France you are guilty until proven innocent; and in America you are innocent until the next edition of the newspaper flies off the presses or the evening news comes on.
111	July 12, 1998	We joke that today's newspaper is tomorrow's fish wrap. But for many people, our work lives on beyond just that day's paper.
109	July 7, 1998	Delgado, who sat in his orange county jail jumpsuit, had tears streaming down his face as he listened to the charges being read the day after his nine-month old son died on a hot summer day, strapped in his car seat, in the backseat of Delgado's broiling Dodge Omni
101	June 23, 1998	We've never shown the readers this sunset view of the city before...if all goes well, it'll stretch across Wednesday morning's front page. Today is Monday, though, and they first have to get through Tuesday's newspaper.
100	June 22, 1998	Last week I had the tables turned on me
87	June 4, 1998	..none of those pictures would have been published without his help.
82	May 29, 1998	Today was one of those days in which you hit the lows and the highs.
78	May 26, 1998	You never know where a pair of dirty socks will take you
73	May 17, 1998	I no longer have to hide under semi-trailer trucks to shoot news pictures of major industries..
67	April 24, 1998	Stop the Presses
63	April 19, 1998	Sign of Discontent
43	March 24, 1998	Humphrey Bogart, move over.
42	March 23, 1998	In the end, only one photo was important...
32	February 27, 1998	My work has now been published in a new media...on a picket sign
28	February 24, 1998	Journalists usually love a good juicy story. I'm in the middle of covering one I hate. Part 3 February 23, 1998 Journalists usually love a good juicy story. I'm in the middle of covering one I hate. Part 2
22	February 20, 1998	Journalists usually love a good juicy story. I'm in the middle of covering one I hate. Part 1
13	February 4, 1998 (9:24 AM)	It was a situation where one has to shoot pictures first, and ask questions later Update: To Mark's February 4 posting
7	January 27, 1998	The viewfinder in our cameras is dark for the split second we shoot our photos...
5	January 23, 1998	Just what is news?
3	January 19, 1998	An 83-year-old reader called me this morning, in tears. .

Contributor since 1998