survivors

I recently had the pleasure of meeting and photographing some amazing people for a feature in Stanford Medicine Magazine. All of our subjects survived some sort of traumatic event. Sophany Bay (left) snacks on an orange at a Buddhist temple near San Jose; she narrowly escaped the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields. 

Deborah Shurson and Gary Fairchild (right) both survived severe brain injuries. While skydiving, Deborah’s parachute didn’t open causing her to land on a golf course at 125 mph; she broke almost every bone in her body. During physical therapy she met Gary, who was recovering from a brain aneurism. The 2 are now married and living a remarkable life together in Palo Alto. It was a real treat to work on such an inspiring story. Big thanks to Dennis Mcleod and David Armario for such an interesting assignment, telling the visual story of these incredible people.