To shoot, or not to shoot ~ October 31, 1996

David Heiller

The semi-trailer truck driver ahead of me flipped on his flashers as we approached the Kettle River Bridge on I-35 last Wednesday, October 23.

I was going north, heading home from work.

It was raining slightly. The wipers cleaned off the windshield every few seconds. Α gray fall day.

I slowed down, and wondered, what was going on.

Α man stood off to the left, swinging a red flashlight in his hand, waving us to keep moving. He had a grim, impatient look on his face. An accident, I thought. Α little further, a red flare was burning on the side of the freeway, to warn motorists to slow down.

On the right I saw a woman with a blanket over her shoulders getting into the back seat of a car.

On the left a car sat in the passing lane. It was terribly smashed. Somebody got hurt, I thought. I couldn’t see a second car, and I wondered how this one had been wrecked. It was bad.

Then I saw the body of a woman lying on the pavement. She had a blanket over her. It didn’t cover her head. She must be alive, I thought. I hoped. A man was standing over her. It looked like he was talking to her.

The accident must have happened just a few minutes earlier. There were no state patrol or county sheriff cars there yet, no rescue squads or ambulances. Just half a dozen people, the first ones to come upon a terrible accident.

But at the same time, I felt self-conscious. I could see myself taking pictures of a person who is terribly hurt, and I felt a bit of shame. What right did I have to do that? Wouldn’t I be adding_, to the pain that is already there? I didn’t want to do it. So I drove on.

That’s when I realized that I’ll never take an award winning photograph of pain or death or sorrow. The kind that is printed in Life Magazine. A bus boy stooped over a bleeding Bobby Kennedy. A black man crying as he plays the accordion for Franklin Roosevelt, who had died the day before.

I don’t have the instinct that separates a reporter from a victim or their loved ones.

If it is truly news, if it has an impact on many people, I can do it. Even then it isn’t always easy. I still feel like a vulture.

But the scene on the interstate wasn’t news. It was one family’s tragedy.

I read in the Duluth News Tribune two days later that the woman did die. Her name was Margaret Rose Hines from Duluth. She was 40.

The car was driven by her daughter, Allison Hines. It left the road and rolled, and Margaret Rose Hines was thrown from the vehicle.

Allison was not hurt. Allison’s three-week-old daughter suffered minor cuts. She was treated and released at Pine Medical Center in Sandstone.

I read Margaret Rose Hines’ obituary. Her nickname was Peggy. Her picture was printed. She liked to line dance and play pool. She was a registered nurse, and a long-distance runner, and she worked as a ski patrol volunteer at Spirit Mountain.

She sounded like a nice lady. She looked friendly. She was younger than me. An accident took her life. Now the lives of those around her will be changed forever.

I’m glad I didn’t stop and take pictures.