Swikar Patel Named NPPA Humanitarian Award Winner

 

DURHAM, NC (May 2, 2011) – Photojournalist Swikar Patel of The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, IN, has been awarded with the National Press Photographers Association's Humanitarian Award for his actions on March 29 when he stopped to take part in the rescue of a child trapped at the scene of an auto accident.

Patel, who has been on the newspaper's staff for less than a year, arrived on the scene of a one-car rollover accident before any of the emergency service first responders. Before he could start taking photographs, he responded to a call for help from John Hoskins, who witnessed the accident who was trying to free two trapped children from the vehicle.

"Patel put down his camera and helped until the first responders arrived," NPPA president Sean D. Elliot said. "Then he started covering the scene. For his efforts, I called him to inform him that NPPA intends to honor him with this award."

The photographer was on his way to the newsroom that Monday morning when he saw the flipped sedan.

"I pulled a little way down the road, parked the car, and headed to the scene," Patel told his newspaper. "As I got closer I heard people screaming and noticed there weren't any police, EMS, or firefighters there yet. I started running and soon enough, I saw John Hoskins pulling 2-month-old Eva Huguenard out of the vehicle. I heard someone yell 'Anyone have a knife?' and I ran back to my car. When I returned, Hoskins already had a knife and was beginning to cut the seat belt on the back passenger side of the car."

Patel says that's when he noticed there was another child hanging upside-down in the car, crying and with blood on his face. "Instead of shooting a picture, I put down the camera," Patel says. "While Hoskins was holding the child, I began to unwedge the car seat, freeing it enough for him to pull out the kid."

When first responders arrived, Patel then started shooting pictures.

Police reported that the driver, Yesenia Huguenard, fell asleep at the wheel and when the car ran off the Illinois Road in Whitley County, IN, it flipped four or five times. Xavier Huguenard, 19 months, suffered minor bleeding while his sister, Eva, 2-months-old, suffered internal head injuries. The driver also suffered minor injuries.

The photograph, incidentally, won 1st Place in Region 4's Spot News category in NPPA's Monthly News Clip Contest (MNCC) for March and will now go on to compete against other MNCC 1st Place Spot News winners from that month for the National contest.

 

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