In the words of the people who work there and in photographs that expose its very soul, photojournalist Eugene Richards explores the emergency room of a big city hospital. Dubbed the “Knife and Gun Club” by local residents, the ER of Denver General Hospital is an acclaimed, albeit controversial healthcare facility. Richards first went there to do a report on emergency medicine for a magazine, but when the assignment was finished he couldn’t stay away; he returned again and again working 12 to 20 hour days in the facility’s trauma and medicine rooms and out in the ambulances. A witness to terrible pain, to life-and-death decisions, and to occasional joy, Richards came to view the emergency room as a microcosm of life, where the restarting of a stopped heart holds the promise of the future, where a 6 hour surgery for a gun shot wounds carries the hurt of assassination and war.

A doctor told Richards one night, as the sirens screamed and the action swirled around him, “people come here to die, and a lot of people do just that. But you didn’t do good if you didn’t try to save them.”

Down to last stock!!

Hardcover: 237 pages
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition (1989)
Condition: Out of Print, may have some wear on dustjacket

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