Photog takes a picture of his own javelin-pierced leg

If there was ever a photographer dedicated to his job, it would Ryan McGeeney. He’s not even a staff photographer, for goodness sakes!

Photo by Ryan McGeeney, after his leg was PIERCED BY A JAVELIN

McGeeney is a photojournalism intern for Utah’s Standard-Examiner and is still a journalism student. If newspapers or wire services weren’t already itching to hire this guy before (oh, and he used to be a Marine), they should be now.

An emergency medical technician cut most of the javelin off, leaving about a foot and a half of the tip in McGeeney’s leg before he was transported to the medical center.

After an incision was made and the offending javelin lifted out, the wound was cleaned, sewn up with 13 stitches and bandaged.

Back on the job, McGeeney said it was his pride that suffered most.

“It was pretty embarrassing.” he said. “I just felt like a jackass. I wasn’t scared. You can tell right away when you’re hurt really bad. I just knew I wasn’t really injured.”

Wilkey said McGeeney stayed calm.

“He never lost consciousness,” Wilkey said. “He was laughing and joking with the medical people that were taking care of it.”

Then McGeeney called a co-worker to report the injury — and got out his camera to document the damage done to his leg.

“It just kind of seemed like the thing to do,” McGeeney said. “It’s one of those things where, if I didn’t take pictures of it, I’d wish I had. Also, if I didn’t, it would probably be my editor’s first question when I got back.”

He is so right. I could totally see him coming back to work, everyone greeting him with questions of concern, and his editor demanding, “did you get pictures?!!” Yeah. Newspapers, you gotta love ’em.

Anyway, if his bravery in the face of a HUGE JAVELIN THROUGH HIS LEG doesn’t impress you, his pictures are pretty good too. Check out his Flickr stream.