I don't know if this will be too graphic for this site, but it is an unflinching look at the harsh realities of drinking and driving. I'll mark is containing adult content for now, but maybe someone can let me know if that's not necessary.

I shot this back in the early 1990s while working as an EMT for a private ambulance company in Los Angeles. We got a 911 call to a traffic collision on the border between the city of Hawthorne and an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County. The crash involved a solo driver who wrapped his car around a telephone pole at a high speed. Firefighters had to use the jaws of life to cut the roof off the vehicle and extricate the driver.

Once they cut the roof off, we found out the guy had a keg of beer on the front passenger seat that he was drinking from. As much as everyone groaned when they saw this, the priority was to save this guy's life. Cutting the car apart took a while, so paramedics requested a LifeFlight helicopter to fly him to the local trauma center since the "Golden Hour" was running down. You can see the flight nurse trying to start the IV and a Hawthorne FD paramedic cutting off the guy's shirt in case they needed to start CPR or defibrillate him if he went into cardiac arrest.

I shot this on film using a Nikon N8008 with a Nikon SB-24 flash. Film used was Fuji 35mm color 400iso that Sam's Club used to sell in packets of like 6 rolls. Flash was set to TTL mode, camera was set to aperture priority mode at f/5.6, if I remember correctly.

I like this shot because I think it captured the intensity first responders feel when life is on the line. Everyone involved works together as a team, regardless of how the person got into the dangerous situation.