My second Littlest Heroes Project assignment was Daniel. His mom contacted the Project when he was in the ICU after having been in cardiac arrest for an hour and 42 minutes. He is 4 years old. This was his 8th cardiac arrest.
Daniel has a chromosomal abnormality that has resulted in many problems, including a disorder called Panhypopituitarism. He was not expected to survive more than a few days after he was born, so his family just takes things one day at a time. On the phone, his mom tells me that he is blind. He is mentally impaired. He doesn’t have full control of his movements.

Knowing all of this before the shoot, I mentally prepared myself to photograph a dying child. And I wondered how they could fight so hard, again and again, to bring him back to life knowing each time that they are fighting against a terminal disease. And then I met Daniel. And he scooched over to me and stared very intently at me and gave me a little grin. And for two hours he played jokes and played catch. He tussled with his brothers and snuggled with his mom and giggled with his dad. And in the end, as I was finishing up the paperwork with his mom, Daniel climbed into my lap and wrapped his arms around my neck. As it turned out, this wasn’t a session to mourn a dying child, this was a session to celebrate a child living.

Cracking up!

Hero Daniel

Happy Hero

Heartbreaker