COAL COUNTRY REVISITED, 2024: 060924_church_197bw.jpg

Billy Privett in Micco, West Virginia. Micco is a tiny village with only a handful of houses. I saw Billy working on this roof and stopped to ask him if he might have known the preacher I photographed in Micco years ago. I asked if he was now retired, and he responded, “Well, not exactly.” I then asked if he was on disability, assuming he’d worked in the mines. He said yes, disability, but he worked construction. His co-worker shot him accidentally in the head with a nail gun. A large 16 penny spike went 5 inches into the back of his skull. He was fully conscious, and walked himself to the local hospital. The injury was so severe they couldn’t treat him and he was helicoptered to a larger hospital, where he stayed overnight until a qualified surgeon arrived. After the surgery he was told if the nail had penetrated another millimeter it would have hit his spinal cord and killed him instantly. He suffers from short-term memory loss and can’t hold a job. If he needs to run errands he has to write down a list of what he is supposed to get.
060924_church_197bw.jpg

Billy Privett in Micco, West Virginia. Micco is a tiny village with only a handful of houses. I saw Billy working on this roof and stopped to ask him if he might have known the preacher I photographed in Micco years ago. I asked if he was now retired, and he responded, “Well, not exactly.” I then asked if he was on disability, assuming he’d worked in the mines. He said yes, disability, but he worked construction. His co-worker shot him accidentally in the head with a nail gun. A large 16 penny spike went 5 inches into the back of his skull. He was fully conscious, and walked himself to the local hospital. The injury was so severe they couldn’t treat him and he was helicoptered to a larger hospital, where he stayed overnight until a qualified surgeon arrived. After the surgery he was told if the nail had penetrated another millimeter it would have hit his spinal cord and killed him instantly. He suffers from short-term memory loss and can’t hold a job. If he needs to run errands he has to write down a list of what he is supposed to get.