Documentary Archives - Books by Eric Douglas

Woody Williams talks about Iwo Jima

February 23, 2019 By Eric Douglas

Today is the 74th anniversary of the raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima and the day that West Virginia war hero Woody Williams earned his Medal of Honor. With the support of four marines, he single-handedly destroyed seven Japanese machine gun pill boxes with flamethrowers.

Here is part of an interview I did with Woody discussing that day as part of the West Virginia Voices of War project.

Woody Williams is the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from Iwo Jima. The painting behind him is of his actions that day.

Research program to save lives

January 8, 2019 By Eric Douglas

Dr. Elmer Mejia being interviewed by Natalie Morales, NBC.

Listen to Eric Douglas discuss the problem, and the fundraiser, on ScubaRadio with Greg Holt.

GoFundMe fundraiser set up to finance project

Link to the GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/research-program-to-save-lives-of-divers

For more than 20 years, Dr. Elmer Mejia of Honduras risked his life to treat the Moskito Indians who live on the east coast of Honduras and Nicaragua. They suffered injuries using scuba equipment to hunt for lobster – all to feed American and European markets.

Throughout that period, Dr. Mejia treated thousands of cases of Moskito Indians with severe decompression illness including exceptional paralysis and incontinence. Often, Moskito Indian divers were carried into his clinic in Puerto Lempira, Honduras and were able to walk out under their own power several days later. Most had residual symptoms but were not paralyzed.

His treatment protocols fly in the face of conventional wisdom treating decompression illness, often beginning days after the injury with tremendous success. His success in many of these cases is nothing short of miraculous. He has patient records, case histories and in many cases follow up examinations on each of these divers.

Dr. Mejia is working with two nonprofit organizations to compile his patient records in a way that his work can be analyzed and used for extensive research. His patient records were written by hand using paper and pencil and have to be entered into a computer for analysis. Dr. Mejia is working with the American 501(c)(3) organization called the Chronic Disease Registry and the Diving Diseases Research Centre (DDRC) in Plymouth, England.

Donations will go to the non-profit Chronic Disease Registry and they will distribute funds to the DDRC in England as they prepare the database and analyze the data for future publication. They will also distribute some of the funds to Dr. Mejia to support him while he does the painstaking work of translating and recording the data.

The results of this research will revolutionize the care for all injured divers and others who need hyperbaric treatment for wound care.

Donations to this fundraiser will make the lives of all divers safer by improving the care they receive after an injury while helping to improve the lives of the indigenous Moskito Indians who have long been exploited for their ability to dive and their lack of other choices to support their families.

About the DDRC (https://www.ddrc.org/)

DDRC Healthcare (previously known as the Diving Diseases Research Centre) is a British hyperbaric medical organization located near Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, Devon. It is a UK registered charity (no.279652) and was established in 1980 at Fort Bovisand (then called Diving Diseases Research Centre) to research the effects of diving on human physiology. The Centre moved to its site on Plymouth Science Park in 1996.

DDRC Healthcare has become a world authority on hyperbaric medical treatments with many publications detailing its work. DDRC Healthcare promotes, provides and works to increase the availability of high quality, cost effective, hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy, through provision of medical treatment and advice; education and training; and research.

About the Chronic Disease Registry (https://www.uswoundregistry.com/Home)

The Chronic Disease Registry hosts seven medical research registries – all listed with ClinicalTrials.gov including venous leg ulcers, cellular products, negative pressure wound therapy and podiatry. The organization is recognized by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) as quality registries for reporting data on behalf of physicians. They have their own Institutional Review Board (IRB) for reviewing research protocols that use the data and analyzes data to develop improved practice guidelines. Their motto is “Harnessing Technology for Healthcare to Find What Works”.

FestivALL 2015 oral histories subject of multimedia display

May 22, 2016 By Eric Douglas

by Douglas Imbrogno, Assistant Lifestyles Editor

Eric Douglas was the guy behind the microphone as he collected oral histories last June from local folks during FestivALL Charleston, the citywide arts and culture festival.

People talked, he listened and recorded — and learned.

One woman recounted how she’d come to Charleston to join the nursing staff at St. Francis Hospital in 1951.

“Just a few weeks after she arrived in Charleston, most of the nurses at St. Francis walked out,” Douglas said.

To be specific, 23 white nurses walked out when the hospital refused to fire three recently hired black nurses.

The woman recounted for Douglas how she and other area nurses were quickly recruited hither and yon to “work the floor” when nurses who walked out were fired or quit.

“I grew up in Charleston — this is a story I’d never heard about in my life,” said Douglas, who continued to learn more about the area as he collected more oral histories.

“It was really eye-opening and interesting for me to hear some of these stories,” he said.

Douglas will share excerpts from 29 oral histories collected last June at “Memories of the Valley: FestivALL Oral Histories,” from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the West Virginia State University Economic Development Center, 1506 Kanawha Blvd. West, on Charleston’s West Side.

The compilation of excerpts is 30 minutes long, but will run in a loop during the event on video screens at the EDC, along with snapshots Douglas took of each person he interviewed. Because the histories are on a loop, spectators can show up anytime between 7 and 9 p.m. to hear them, he said.

Read the rest of the story: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/ae-arts/20160522/festivall-2015-oral-histories-subject-of-multimedia-display#sthash.MhXQBkcf.dpuf

Learn how to capture memories

March 29, 2016 By Eric Douglas

Earlier this year I released a book called Capturing Memories: How to Record Oral Histories. Collecting oral histories is very important to me. Oral histories are how we capture our family stories. They aren’t about important events, necessarily. They are about daily life.

I’ve now created three classes on the learning platform Skillshare based on the book. The first class is free. Simply for registering using the link, you will get one FREE month of access to everything on Skillshare. This is a fantastic resource for people who like to create. There are thousands of interesting classes to choose from.

If you are even vaguely interested in finding out more, please follow the link to the first class and sign up. If you like what you see, please leave a review. That is important for me to get more students.

The first class is all about interview techniques I learned from years of conducting interviews. The second class discusses the technical aspects of making the recording. The third class is a discussion about what to leave in and what to take out when you are editing a story into a finished product.

Check them out!

Skillshare classes:

Oral History: How to get anyone to talk about themselves

Oral History: How to Record an Interview

Oral History: Editing your recording into a story

New book teaches “How To” record oral histories

March 2, 2016 By Eric Douglas

Oral histories are recordings from every day people about life. They are the day-to-day events that don’t fill up our history books, but are just as important. The new book by Eric Douglas Capturing Memories: How to Record Oral Histories is now available in softcover and on Kindle to help readers record oral histories with their own families.

“As a journalist and author, I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews. Most of it was trial and error. I learned how to approach the interview and what questions to ask by doing it,” Douglas said. “After recording nearly 100 oral histories, I realized the interview is probably the hardest part of the process, so I decided to let readers benefit from all the mistakes I’ve made.”

The book covers: Research, Interviewing, Getting Releases, Recording the Interview, Telling a Story and Editing. It also includes a foreword on the importance of collecting oral histories by the Editor of Goldenseal and West Virginia State Folklife Director Stan Bumgardner.

Capturing Memories: How to Record Oral Histories will guide you through the process from choosing your goals, writing advance questions and making the recording using your smartphone, a recorder or your computer. It is available in softcover through all major online retailers for $9.99 and in Kindle format through Amazon for $5.99.

Eric Douglas has a degree in Journalism from Marshall University and has worked for newspapers and magazines for more than 25 years. He created international documentary projects on the changes in Russia and the Lobster Divers of Honduras. In 2013, he produced the oral history documentary West Virginia Voices of War. In 2015, he joined forces with FestivALL to record oral histories of Charleston-area residents. On April 14, he will present the Creators Talk: Capturing Memories: How to Record Family Histories and on May 26, he will show a collection of excerpts from the FestivALL recordings called Creators Present: Memories of the Valley: FestivALL Oral Histories. Both presentations will be at the West Virginia State University Economic Development Center.

You can find more information on the book Capturing Memories: How to Record Oral Histories on the book page.

For more information on the Creators Series at WVSU Economic Development Center, visit the website at www.wvsuedc.org and click on the Creators tab. All workshops are held at the WVSU EDC located at 1506 Kanawha Blvd. West in Charleston. You can also call at 304 720-1401 or email Jaime at jrinehart@wvstateu.edu.