VENICE, CA (July 17, 2007) - "We continue to pray for a full recovery," VII managing director Frank Evers said tonight from Venice, CA, as he spoke about the condition of VII photojournalist Alexandra Boulat, who remains in a medically induced coma in a neurosurgery hospital in Paris.
Boulat suffered a brain hemorrhage while on assignment in Ramallah, Evers said, and she underwent a 5-hour operation at the Hadassah hospital in Israel where doctors stopped the bleeding and stabilized her condition. To give her rest and aid the recovery, doctors put her into a coma, he said, and performed some other minor surgeries to make her breathing easier.
Evers said Boulat was transported back to France on Monday to be near her family, and that she remains in coma but is being cared for by the neurosurgery department at Lariboisière hospital in Paris. She is the daughter of Life magazine photographer Pierre Boulat and Annie Boulat, and she's a native of Paris.
Boulat is one of the founding members of the VII agency and has been primarily a conflict photographer in the Middle East, joining VII when it was established in 2001. She was trained in graphic art and art history at the Beaux Arts in Paris. Her news and feature stories have been published in Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, and Paris-Match.
Her agency is collecting money to offset significant medical expenses. Evers says donations can be sent to VII at their Los Angeles, CA, offices and that checks should be addressed to the Alex Boulat Fund. The agency's postal address is 920 Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice, CA, USA, 90291. Evers said donations can also be made through PayPal and that additional information will be available on the VII agency's Web site.
