On July 17, 1967, in Jacksonville, Florida, Randall G. Champion received a shock of more than 4,000 volts while working high atop a utility pole. He was left unconscious, hanging from his harness six meters above the ground, with no detectable pulse.
His coworker J.D. Thompson was about 120 meters away when he saw Champion collapse. He did not think twice: he climbed the pole, secured himself with his safety belt, and began giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation right up there, in the air. With one hand he held his friend’s lifeless body. With the other, he tried to bring back his breath. He felt a faint pulse, unfastened the harness, and lowered Champion down over his own shoulders.
Rocco Morabito, a photographer for the Jacksonville Journal who happened to be passing by while covering a railroad strike, stopped, called for help on the radio, and captured the scene. That image won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in 1968 and is known all over the world as “The Kiss of Life”. Champion survived and lived 35 more years.
When Thompson was asked about it decades later, he summed it all up like this: “I don’t feel like a hero… I just did what any lineman would do.” 🏆