Diana Bryant & Tiare Jones: Fire Escape Collapse

**chris** · #1 ● 03-19-2024, 09:59 AM

This was originally posted by tsgt6 as a comment, but I wanted it to have it's own thread.

The photo was taken during a Fire Escape Collapse in Boston in 1975, by Stanley Forman. Nineteen year old Diana Bryant and her two year old goddaughter Tiare Jones died from this fall.

Here are his comments:

It was 22 July 1975. I was about to leave the offices of the Boston Herald for the day.

A call came in about a fire in one of the city's older sections of Victorian row houses. I rushed to the house and followed one of the engines to the fire. I ran to the back of the building, because on the way there they kept yelling for a ladder truck because there were people trapped in the building on the fire escape.

I ran to the back of the building and when I looked up there was a woman and a child on the fire escape and they were basically leaning at the furthest point from the building because of the heat of the fire behind them.

In the meantime, a firefighter called Bob O'Neil had climbed on to the front of the building on the roof and saw the pair on the fire escape. He lowered himself on to the fire escape to rescue them.

I took a position where I could photograph what I thought was an impending routine rescue. The ladder went up to pick them up - they were about 50ft (15m) up. Mr O'Neill had just told Diana Bryant that he was going to step onto the ladder and asked her to hand the baby to him.

Mr O'Neil was reaching out for the ladder when suddenly the fire escape gave way. I was shooting pictures as they were falling - then I turned away. It dawned on me what was happening and I didn't want to see them hit the ground. I can still remember turning around and shaking.

It transpired that I wouldn't have seen them hit the ground as they fell behind a fence where the bins were. When I did turn around I didn't see them but I saw the firefighter still clinging onto the ladder with one arm, like a monkey, with all his gear. He hoisted himself back up the fire escape to safety.

They say the woman broke the child's fall. The woman died later that night.

At the time, I didn't know that the picture was going to be so big or have such an impact. When I started looking at the negatives I was looking at the rescue picture, where they were holding on to each other. I didn't even look at the next frame, I didn't know exactly what I'd got. I knew I had shot them coming down, I didn't realise how dramatic it was until I had developed the film.

The picture was first published in the Boston Herald and then picked up and published in newspapers all over the world. There was much debate about showing such a horrific picture.

I was never bothered by the controversy. When you think about it, I don't think it was that horrific. The woman at the time was not deceased; we didn't show a dead person on the front page. She did die, which is a horrible thing. I didn't think it was that bad, but then I am the photographer, so I'm biased.Any time there are stories about fire safety issues or issues such as those people went through with the hurricane in New Orleans, it wakes people up.

My photograph prompted people to go out and check their fire escapes and ushered in a law that meant that the owner of the property is responsible for fire-escape safety. It was also used in many fire-safety pamphlets for many years.

Thirty years later it's nice to know that I did the right thing. I haven't seen anything like it since. I've seen pictures that I wish I'd made but I haven't seen anything as dramatic as that, and I've seen some pretty good pictures.

When you say a picture tells a thousand words, this one certainly told 10,000.