Norwich ― Whether it was a local fair, major news event, or on New Year’s Day at Backus Hospital, Jeff Evans had a camera hanging from his neck, ready to capture the moment.

Evans, 72, of Norwich died unexpectedly Wednesday night at Backus Hospital after suffering an apparent heart attack, longtime friends and co-workers said Thursday.

Evans spent his entire adult life chronicling eastern Connecticut events, from major news stories, high school and college sports during his tenure as a Norwich Bulletin photographer and photo editor to human interest features working as custom publications photographer at The Day. He later brought his photojournalist eye to Hartford Healthcare in 2007 as a multimedia specialist, photographer and videographer, for the company’s East Region, which includes Backus and Windham hospitals.

In that role, Evans caught equally dramatic scenes on camera. During a blizzard one day in February 2021, Evans was at work when an ambulance crew delivered a baby in the parking lot.

“This is prototypical Jeff,” Shawn Mawhiney, Hartford Healthcare senior director of communications, wrote in an email Thursday describing the photo. “There was a blizzard and Jeff didn’t want to cancel a photo assignment, so he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Happened a lot with him.”

Evans won an award from the New England Society for Healthcare Communications for another photo of the Life Star helicopter glistening with ice on an early winter morning.

Donna Handley, president of the Backus and Windham hospitals sent a letter early Thursday to colleagues announcing Evans’ unexpected death.

“It is impossible to capture what Jeff meant, and what he gave, in his years of service to the East Region,” Handley wrote. “Over nearly two decades, Jeff captured literally tens of thousands of images. He was there for celebrations and groundbreakings, announcements and awards, events and gatherings. Someone once told me, half in jest, that Jeff was the best-known and most-recognized person at either of our hospitals. It was no joke. With his trusty Nikon strapped around his neck and bag of gear slung over his shoulder, he knew every floor, every unit, every corner and every department.”

Keith Fontaine, who first met Evans when he started working at the Bulletin as an intern in 1980 and is now a communications manager at Hartford Healthcare, recalled that there was a big board meeting at Backus on Dec. 14, 2012, the morning of the Sandy Hook school massacre. Evans went into photojournalism action and secured a video interview with Dr. James O’Dea, a psychiatrist, now senior vice president of behavioral health, offering advice on how to cope with such tragedies.

“Only Jeff could do that,” Fontaine said. “He had an amazing ability. He never lost his photojournalist sense, to capture the moment, to put people at ease.”

Friends and co-workers on Thursday called Evans a consummate professional, a true gentleman and a part of so many lives. During off hours, he photographed their weddings, births of their children, sports events and first days of school for their children.

“This is pretty devastating,” said Sean Elliot, former director of photography at The Day. “He was not a young man, but he was one of those steady presences that always seemed to be there for year after year after year.”

Evans started working as a photographer at the Bulletin in 1975 and became photo editor, mentoring young photographers and reporters alike. Longtime Bulletin photographer John Shishmanian, who retired in the fall, credited Evans’ bicycle adventure vacation in England for his start at the Bulletin. Shishmanian was hired as a two-week substitute but never left when Evans returned.

“He was always there,” Shishmanian said. “I would come in early, he was here. He was not a workaholic, but a devoted employee. He wanted the best out of us. If there was something he didn’t like about a photo, he would let you know.”

Mawhiney was a “cub reporter” at the Bulletin in 1994, when the region lured the New York Yankees minor league team from Albany to the new Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium in Norwich. Evans and a nervous Mawhiney drove together to Albany to do a story on the team.

It was during the Major League Baseball strike, so then Yankees manager Buck Showalter was spending time with the minor league team.

Evans pushed Mawhiney to interview Showalter, and when the manager was busy and told Mawhiney to come back later, Evans waited patiently, and afterward gave Mawhiney a photo he took of the interview. Mawhiney still has it framed in his house. Evans took the photos at Mawhiney’s wedding.

“Not only did he impact people who worked with him, but he impacted so many people in their personal lives, because he was there for weddings and big life moments, your children, your family reunions,” Mawhiney said. “This is taking everyone on a trip down memory lane. We spent last night looking at our wedding photos.”

Evans left the Bulletin and started working at The Day as custom publications photographer in 1998, shooting features, first of local businesses for The Day’s “Marketplace” Sunday magazine and then for the “Grace” magazine.

When he came to The Day, Elliot handed him the 1993 rejection letter Evans sent him when Elliot tried to get a job at the Bulletin.

Evans showed a worried look and asked Elliot: “Is that going to be a problem?”

Elliot laughed, and the two became co-workers and friends, which continued when Evans went to Hartford Healthcare in April 2007.

“Jeff was the perfect person when we hired him as our custom pubs photographer,” Elliot said. “He knew everyone alive and was such a great resource.”

Bret Rusk was 13 when he and his mother moved from Chicago to Groton. A skinny, shy kid, Rusk met Evans at the Groton Heights Baptist Church, where Rusk’s uncle was pastor.

“We just kind of clicked,” Rusk said.

Evans became like a big brother, mentoring and encouraging the teenager. They went biking and camping in North Conway, N.H. At times, Evans brought young Rusk to work at The Bulletin.

He soon was hired part-time in the photography department and later building the newspaper pages. He left the Bulletin and spent 20 years working as a graphic designer before recently starting his own construction company, Rusk Home Improvements in Gales Ferry.

Through it all, Evans was there, Rusk said, always encouraging him in career and personal pursuits. Evans was best man at his wedding, and godfather to Bret and Janis Rusk’s son, Jimmy. When their daughter, Colleen, now 28, was young, Evans would photograph her as part of The Bulletin’s back-to-school coverage.

“He became really close to my family,” Rusk said. “He became part of my life.”

Funeral arrangements for Evans were not available Thursday.

c.bessette@theday.com