Freelance journalists in conflict zones risk their lives daily, and they are often required to help others around them. More than 200 journalists have been killed in the past three years, at least 88% of which were working in their home countries. Many of their injuries need not have been fatal, and could have been treated with early intervention, delivered by non-medical personal. Through our Trauma Training for Journalists (TTJ), we have successfully organized workshops for freelanceers in Iraq and Lebanon – teaching them to treat and manage shock, assess combat injuries, and use medical supplies, which we provide. All of our trainers are volunteers and the course is offered free of charge to local freelancers. This program has been generously supported by the Rory Peck Trust and individual donors. If you are interested in supporting this initiative, we accept contributions.

Trauma Training for Journalists (“TTJ”) Personnel

David Young, MD, a board-certified emergency physician, is currently a Fellow in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine at the University of Colorado in Denver, USA.  He has served in numerous teaching capacities for pre-hospital care and trauma medicine, including in the Medicine in the Wild Course for the National Outdoor Leadership School’s Wilderness Medicine Institute.  He was a volunteer physician at the 2013 Boston Marathon, where two exploding bombs injured 267 people, 3 fatally.

Michael Puntis, MD, works at St. George’s Hospital in London.  He has worked extensively in emergency and intensive care medicine and as a teacher both in the UK and other countries, including Australia, Indonesia, and Nicaragua.

Justin Ide, a freelance photographer who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA, is a certified Emergency Medical Technician and works currently as an EMT.  Until 2012, he lived in Boston, and was staff photographer for Harvard University. He has worked as a photographer in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Lesotho, Botswana, South Africa, DR Congo and Haiti.

Samuel Masters, a freelance filmmaker in Boston, is a certified Urban Emergency Medical Technician, Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician, and Wilderness First Responder. He has taught or worked in various settings ranging from youth incarcerated in the State of Washington’s prisons, to Thailand and Brazil.

TTJ Co-founder Andrew Wade Nunn, a freelance photojournalist living near Cologne, Germany, was a US Army medic from 2003 through 2010, serving repeated tours of medical duty in combat and providing medical trauma training to military personnel in the US, Germany and Iraq.

TTJ Co-founder Jodi Hilton lives in Sofia, Bulgaria, and is a widely published photojournalist specializing in coverage of the Balkans and southwest Asia. She is a graduate of the RISC medical trauma training program and focuses much of her non-photography activities on journalists’ welfare. She and Executive Director Neal Jackson alternate providing on-sight workshop management.

TTJ Co-founder Julie Winokur, Executive Director of Talking Eyes Media (TEM).  TTJ instructors providing medical trauma workshops operate as agents of TEM, which also manages and provides “back-office” operations in support of the workshops.

TTJ Co-founder Neal Jackson is Chairman Emeritus of the VII Photo Agency, and was Vice President and General Counsel at news content provider NPR and npr.org.  He is Executive Director of TTJ and alternates providing on-sight workshop management with Jodi Hilton.