Photographer speared by javelin at Utah meet

sirsloopsirsloop Registered Users Posts: 866 Major grins
edited May 23, 2008 in Sports
Moral of the story... Buy bigger lenses!! :rofl:rofl:rofl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080520/ap_on_re_us/speared_by_javelin

PROVO, Utah - A newspaper photographer got a little too close to the action at the state high school track championships — and was speared through the leg by a javelin.Ryan McGeeney of the Standard-Examiner was spared serious injury in Saturday's mishap, and even managed to snap a photo of his speared leg while others worked to help him.
"If I didn't, it would probably be my editor's first question when I got back," McGeeney said later.
The 33-year-old McGeeney, an ex-Marine who spent six months in Afghanistan, was taking pictures of the discus event and apparently wandered into off-limits area set aside for the javelin throw.
Striking just below the knee, the javelin tip went through the skin and emerged on the other side of his leg.
"It wasn't real painful. ... I was very lucky in that it didn't hit any blood vessels, nerves, ligaments or tendons," McGeeney said.
Much of the javelin was cut off at the scene. The piece in McGeeney's leg was removed at a hospital, and he received 13 stitches.
The javelin was thrown by Anthony Miles, a Provo High School student who said when he saw what had happened, "my heart just stopped."
"One of the first things that came to my mind was, 'Good thing we brought a second javelin,'" Miles' coach, Richard Vance, said Monday. He said Miles was "in a little bit of shock," but he assured the athlete that it was not his fault.
With a subsequent throw, Miles went on to win the state title in javelin for teams in Provo High's size classification, 4-A.

Comments

  • wingerwinger Registered Users Posts: 694 Major grins
    edited May 20, 2008
    Damn now I feel like a whimp for only taking a lacross ball to the chest.
  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,962 moderator
    edited May 20, 2008
    But he kept on shooting! Now there's a pro.
  • sirsloopsirsloop Registered Users Posts: 866 Major grins
    edited May 20, 2008
    I was at an NHRA event at englishtown last year and a door fell off one of the cars. It JUST missed one of the media guys... scarey stuff...
  • wingerwinger Registered Users Posts: 694 Major grins
    edited May 20, 2008
    Richard wrote:
    But he kept on shooting! Now there's a pro.
    Yeah I definatly didnt.

    I had a friend shooting a hockey tournament and for one of the team photos he went to step on a little step stool and the thing went out from under him. In order to protect the camera he took the brunt of the fall with his arm and fired off a shot (not really intentionally) but he got this great photo of the facial experssions from the players.
  • dogwooddogwood Registered Users Posts: 2,572 Major grins
    edited May 20, 2008
    Oh man-- what a story! Definitely beats getting pepper sprayed at anti-war rallies while shooting!

    Portland, Oregon Photographer Pete Springer
    website blog instagram facebook g+

  • mr peasmr peas Registered Users Posts: 1,369 Major grins
    edited May 20, 2008
    Richard wrote:
    But he kept on shooting! Now there's a pro.

    Tsk tsk! All that time sitting on the ground, he could have used some flash in that shot! Hahah. rolleyes1.gif

    Glad it wasn't life threatening and he's okay.
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,134 moderator
    edited May 20, 2008
    mr peas wrote:
    Tsk tsk! All that time sitting on the ground, he could have used some flash in that shot! Hahah. rolleyes1.gif

    Glad it wasn't life threatening and he's okay.

    Oddly, the linked image is also in Adobe RGB, so the colors are also muted on most browsers. A rookie mistake.
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • ZeeZee Registered Users Posts: 98 Big grins
    edited May 21, 2008
    One of the other photographers at our local track ate it recently too. He was standing on a cement wall between pit in and pit out when a piece air fence was pick up and tossed by a dust devil. It knocked him right off the wall (only about 3 feet high) and on to the pavement. It's been over two weeks and he's still in the hospital - according to the doc he "demolished his knee and upper tibia"

    Be careful when you chose your shooting position.......
  • JavaLoverJavaLover Registered Users Posts: 306 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2008
    I saw this story on CNN, ewww. Glad the guy is ok.

    Reading these stories now I'm afraid, I get target fixation bad sometimes. We geocache too and this t-shirt about sums things up.
    geo5614bb.jpg

    Thank goodness for my hubby, he keeps me safe. iloveyou.gif
    Canon 40D, stock lens and now a Canon 55mm-250mm f/4-5.6 IS.
    tfarley.smugmug.com
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