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Main | Feature Picture Story - Newspaper | Second Place

First Place
Akos Stiller
HVG

"THE FARMLANDS"

Second Place
Spenser Heaps
Daily Herald

"Losing Victoria"

Third Place
Mads Nissen
Panos Pictures

"Arctic Outposts"

Award of Excellence
Thomas Lekfeldt
Scanpix/Berlingske/BT

"Beating Cancer"

 
Second Place
Spenser Heaps
Daily Herald


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"Losing Victoria"

Victoria Campbell, 17, stares into the camera while sitting in the living room at her home in Orem, Utah on Friday, Feb. 14, 2014. In late 2012, Victoria and two of her four siblings were diagnosed with the rare, genetic disease metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD), which causes the fatty tissue in the brain to deteriorate.The three Campbell children with the disease each underwent radical chemotherapy treatments followed by bone marrow transplants. While the disease seems to have been halted for her siblings, for Victoria the treatment was too little, too late. By early 2014, the disease had eaten away at Victoria's brain so much that she could hardly communicate, speaking very rarely. As she continued to decline, Victoria's parents Aaron and Emily made a decision to allow Victoria to live out the rest of her life comfortably rather than take extraordinary measures that would only prolong the pain."We knew what the normal progression of the disease was and it is a horrible, cruel, cruel disease," Victoria's mother, Emily Campbell, said. "We didn't want her to have to suffer through that."

 

 

 

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