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Three days before Christmas of 2004, Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel was on a routine patrol during his second tour of duty in Iraq when a suicide bomber blew up near his truck. The blast took off a portion of his left arm and three fingers from his other hand, fractured his jaw, left him blind in one eye, shattered his skull, and melted most of the skin off his head. Sgt. Ziegel was in a coma for months afterwards and spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, where he underwent more than 50 operations including the fitting of a plastic cap for his skull and the surgical reconstruction of his face with holes for his missing ears and nose. The London Times described the transformation of Sgt. Ziegel's experience into what seemed to be a modern day fairy tale: During the period between Ty's convalescence and his marriage to Renée Kline, photographer Nina Berman, on assignment for People magazine, visited him three separate times and recorded a series of photographs chronicling his recovery, homecoming and wedding day. One of those photographs was an iconic image shown which in 2006 won in the portraiture category of the World Press Photo contest, the most prestigious international award for photojournalism -- yet it was questioned by some social media users when they encountered it with no explanatory context: The photograph was described as follows by Lindsay Beyerstein for a 2007 Salon article: In that article, Nina Berman also described the circumstances under which the photograph was taken: Unfortunately, difficulties in the marriage proved too much for the couple to overcome, and Ty and Renée were divorced in January 2008: Ty Ziegel passed away in December 2012: Testimony given at a coroner's inquest several months later revealed that Ty's death had been the result of heroin and alcohol intoxication rather than injuries sustained in a fall.
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