It’s a frightening sensation when an accident announced on the newsroom scanner — something that typically mobilizes our reporters and photographers — turns out to involve one of the news team’s family members.
It’s happened a few times, actually — most recently this past Wednesday when our Victor Post reporter and photographer Melody Burri got a call that her daughter had been in a rollover accident on South Main Street in Canandaigua.
When the reporter and photographer reached the accident, lo and behold, there was Melody. When our photographer was pushed back by emergency crews, Melody, of course, was allowed to stay.
And since she had her camera, and her daughter was smiling and communicating with the rescuers, and she had nothing else to occupy the time but worry, Melody began to snap photos.
She didn’t take photos for the newspaper — or for any particular reason — except that that is what Melody does; she takes some of the most jaw-dropping photographs I’ve ever seen. Melody has a way of capturing emotion in her photos — and her writing — as readers of the Victor Post and Daily Messenger who are familiar with her work can attest.
We didn’t run her photos with the story about the crash, although Melody and her daughter gave us permission to. Photographer Jack Haley had some compelling shots of his own and we used those in print and online.
Following the accident, Jack told me he was going to run down to the emergency room and see if Melody would let us use her photos. He thought, since he had been moved away from the scene and Melody was up close, we might want to use hers — especially since her daughter’s injuries, while life-altering, were not life-threatening.
So in an absurd twist of events, the kind that seems to happen on a regular basis in the newsroom, Jack ran to the Thompson Hospital emergency department to check on Melody and her daughter.
And to grab the memory card from Melody’s camera.
I know it sounds strange — and maybe even unfeeling — but it really is not. We cared first and foremost about Melody and her family. We also are always in news mode so when the news gets personal, we keep reporting.
And supporting one another.
In one photo, Melody is in the ambulance and her daughter is on a gurney being loaded in, head first.
That’s one shot we would never otherwise get.
Melody told me she was touched by the way her news family responded to word of the accident — on a personal level. Her colleagues, she said, have always been helpful and friendly but until this accident she had no idea how supportive and caring they are.
News, family, community. It’s the magic combination that makes community newspapers and websites valuable beyond measure.
Allison Cooper is managing editor of Messenger Post Media.
