Garth Rattray
A little morbid curiosity and 'rubbernecking' at the scene of a fatal accident is not unusual, but getting up close and personal with the unfortunate, splayed victims to take and send photographs all over the Internet for all and sundry to gawk at is warped, depraved and just plain sick. There is even an entire website dedicated solely to displaying macabre and graphic images of people whose bodies were ripped up by automobile crashes, wartime killings and other trauma.
Unfortunately, there is a growing trend of emailing gory images of our accident victims all across the globe. I recall a set of detailed photographs revealing the victim of an accident that took place early one morning on Hope Road. A speeding motor vehicle had become airborne, flipped and landed on top of another car. The photographs showed the badly traumatised body of the victim in the car that was crushed.
Another set of photographs was of the victim of a horrible accident on the Washington Boulevard. They showed the badly cut-up body of a female pedestrian that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sadly, someone derived some sort of sick pleasure from taking pictures of her and emailing it like a macabre chain letter.
Terrible photos
Then there were photographs of a group of people killed in an accident involving a small public passenger bus and a truck in Hayes, Clarendon. Lifeless images of broken and contorted people were taken and sent everywhere.
The most recent set of macabre pictures came from that awful July 4 accident in Half-Way Tree. A Leyland garbage truck apparently lost control and crashed into a group of four people on the sidewalk nearby. Newspaper vendor Dezreen Irving died on the spot and Allison Burke succumbed to her injuries five days later.
I had resolved to delete any emails depicting gruesome deaths, but I was curious to find out if one of the victims was someone from whom I used to purchase newspapers in Half-Way Tree. I timidly opened the email only to be greeted by close-up, clear, professional-looking, extremely graphic and revealing pictures of the most gory accident scene imaginable. I recognised the mangled face as belonging to a decent, amiable, polite and very industrious newspaper vendor who worked out there rain or shine, from very early in the morning, into the hot day, trying to make a living for herself and family.
Disrespecting a memory
She was always properly groomed and modestly dressed. No one saw fit to email photographs of her vibrantly earning an honest living; yet, some sick, cruel and unconscionable individual chose to disrespect her memory and further traumatise her loved ones by exploiting and sensationalising her horrendous demise by photographing and revealing parts of her strewn all over the roadway that only a surgeon or pathologist should see.
No one can claim to be showing the world what can happen in a motor vehicle crash or hide behind the excuse of 'human interest' or 'tragedy' while taking and sending such horribly grisly pictures. Such an act is simply immoral, unfeeling, sensationalistic, contemptuous and depraved. How would that photographer feel if pictures of his/her dead loved one were taken and emailed everywhere? It's hard to believe that some in society have sunk so low. This was an obscene, unmitigated assault on decency, respect for the dead, her family and friends.
I offer Dezreen's family and friends my deepest and very sincere condolences and join them in beseeching people to stop forwarding images of her in death.
Dr Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice; garthrattray@gmail.com; for feedback, columns@gleanerjm.com.
