Suffering, courage and foolishness coexist along the quiet hallways of the Arizona Burn Center. The center serves all of Arizona and portions of Utah and New Mexico. Boasting a 97 percent survival rate, the ward has earned a national reputation, making it one of the bright spots in a battered county healthcare system.

Dozens of medications, high-tech ventilators, faltering skin grafts, bedside amputations and the hovering risk of infection create the unit. However, the courage of the patients, the compassion of the nurses, the dark-humored expertise of doctors and the months of intimacy and suffering shape this disturbing but inspiring place.

- Photographed in Phoenix, Arizona, for Phoenix Magazine