JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The retired Jacksonville lineman at the center of the iconic 1968 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo "The Kiss of Life" was honored at a city council meeting Tuesday night.
J.D. Thompson was recognized for saving the life of his friend and colleague Randall Champion after he touched a live electrical line on July 17, 1967.
Jacksonville City Councilman Mike Gay presented a resolution to honor Thompson at Tuesday's meeting, and city council approved the renaming of Electrical Avenue to J.D. Thompson Street. The street sits at the entrance of JEA's Northside Generating Station.
Thompson and Champion were upgrading electrical lines near the intersection of 26th Street and Grunthal Street at the time of the incident. The electrical shock stopped Champion's heart, rendering him unconscious and left him dangling upside down some 20 feet in the air. Thompson, who was on another pole about 200 yards away, rushed to Champion's aid.
He began CPR, which at the time was a new life-saving technique that Thompson had learned just months before.
First Coast News sat down with Thompson in 2017 to discuss the moment 50 years earlier.
"I was putting air in him as hard as I could go," Thompson told First Coast News at the time. "And also trying to reach around him and hit him in the chest. And, all at once, he came to."
Champion was hospitalized with a burn to his foot that required skin grafting and needed months to heal. But, Thompson said the jolt could have easily killed him.
"A lot of people have survived," Thompson said. "It’s just a matter of how long you’re hooked on to it, you know? And, a lot of people have been killed instantly."
Rocco Morabito, a Jacksonville Journal photographer, happened to be in the area to capture Thompson's life-saving efforts on film. He would go on to win the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for the picture.