BIRTH

“Reflection on Sounds”, an extract from my personal notes whilst working on my photo-essay Portrait of a City Hospital - health care in America made at Denver General Hospital November 1996.

I recall one morning, early, following a SIDS being wheeled on a gurney into the morgue.  This tiny bundle covered with a white sheet was in stark contrast to the two burly porters, dressed in light blue throw-away overalls, who guided the gurney.  The silence amplified every sound.  The trolley wheels on the tiled floor, the rollers being pulled out and then pushed back into the refrigerated compartment, even the sound of the porter scribbling on a note board.  And then my telephone vibrated.  I rushed from the morgue to the delivery ward to hear the first warbly cry of a newborn baby.

There really are no words to express the gamut of emotions I felt working on that project - November 1996 through January 1997.

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