Fire Escape Collapse
Photographer: Stanley Forman
Date: July 22, 1975
Location: Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Stanley Forman photographed Diana Bryant, 19, and 2-year-old Tiare Jones falling from a collapsing fire escape at 31 Marlborough Street in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston on July 22, 1975. The fire escape, attached to a building engulfed in a five-alarm fire, gave way while firefighters were positioning a ladder to rescue the pair. Bryant died from her injuries; the toddler survived, cushioned by Bryant's body. Forman, then a photographer for the Boston Herald American, happened to be in the right position with his motor-drive camera. He said he dropped his camera and looked away as they fell, not realizing until later what he had captured. The photographs sparked immediate national debate about fire safety regulations and led to stricter building and fire escape codes in cities across the United States. Forman won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1976.
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