Special Recoginition, Canon Photo Essay
Matt Rainey, The Star-Ledger

"After the Fire"
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Of all the misfortunes fate can visit upon the human body, burns are the cruelest.
Burns scare the body from the outside in. They disintegrate the skin and desecrate the sole. They maim faces and fracture families. They ravage lives.
Burns assault the body's immune system and imperil its vital organs. They foster mysterious infections that can cause death weeks, even months, after the burns occur.
The emotional wounds are as perilous as the physical ones. Recovery is agony. Years later, some burn survivors with they had died. Others, despite daily suffering and a haunting sense of loss, return to the world stronger and somehow richer.
For all, there is a journey that cannot be taken alone, but is fiercely lonely.
The journey for Alvaro Llanos Jr. began early in the morning Jan. 19, when he was caught in the brutal dormitory fire at Seton Hall University in New Jersey that killed three of his freshman classmates.
Fifty-eight students, including Alvaro, were injured that Wednesday.
Alvaro was hurt gravely. More than half of his body was burned. Chunks of his once athletic frame were gone. From his waist up, nothing was spared.
This is the story of his long path back from burns that nearly took his life, of the family and friends who stood by him.
It is a story of survival, and of love.