Kiss was a real lifeline
QUESTION What is the story of a photograph of an engineer being given the kiss of life on top of a telegraph pole?
THE news photograph called the Kiss Of Life shows electrical lineman J. D. Thompson giving mouth- to- mouth resuscitation to his co-worker Randall G. Champion. It was taken on July 17, 1967, by Rocco Morabito, a photographer for the Jacksonville Journal in Florida.
The linemen had been performing routine maintenance for the Jacksonville electric Authority when Champion brushed one of the live lines at the top of the utility pole.
A bolt of electricity shot through him, stopping his heart. his safety harness prevented his fall, leaving him dangling.
Thompson ran from another pole 400 ft away and scrambled up to Champion. Unable to perform CPR in the air, he gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Once he felt a pulse, he unbuckled Champion’s harness and descended the pole with him on his shoulder. Thompson and another worker administered CPR on the ground.
Champion had been partly revived by the time an ambulance arrived. he was taken to hospital where he was treated for burns.
The two men became close friends and worked for the electricity company for a further 30 years.
Just as extraordinary as the saving of a life was the fortuitous presence of the photographer at the scene.
Morabito was driving on West 26th Street on an assignment to photograph a rail strike when he saw Champion suspended from the telegraph pole.
he later said: ‘I heard screaming. I looked up and saw this man hanging down. Oh my God, I didn’t know what to do. I took a picture right quickly.
‘J. D. Thompson was running toward the pole. I went to my car and called an ambulance. I got back to the pole and J. D. was breathing into Champion.
‘I backed off, way off, until I hit a house and I couldn’t go any farther. I took another picture. Then I heard Thompson shouting: “he’s breathing!” ’
Morabito won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.
Damien Green, Norwich, Norfolk.
QUESTION Is the novel Moby-Dick based on a true story?
MOBY-DICK is based on author herman Melville’s experiences as a whaler, as well as the sinking of the whaling ship The essex in 1820 and the story of a giant sperm whale dubbed Mocha Dick.
Unpopular in Melville’s lifetime, Moby-Dick is now widely regarded as one of the great American novels.
Melville was a former bank clerk, farm worker and teacher when he signed up for a three-year voyage on the New bedford whaling ship Acushnet, setting sail for the South Pacific in 1841.
To escape the difficult captain, Melville and a friend jumped ship on the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. he spent the next two years working around the South Pacific, spending time in Tahiti and hawaii.
he read voraciously and his vivid experiences gave him a store of memories on which he could draw for his novels.
Melville met Nantucket whaler William henry Chase, the son of Owen Chase, a sailor on The essex, who loaned him his father’s account of the sinking, Narrative Of The Most extraordinary And Distressing Shipwreck Of The Whale-Ship essex.
It told a remarkable story. On November 20, 1820, just south of the equator, the crew spotted a large sperm whale. With ‘fury and vengeance in his aspect’, the creature rammed The essex twice and ‘stove in her bows’.
Forced to abandon ship, the crew made an epic three-month journey in open boats across storm-tossed seas.
Only eight survived — three chose to stay on a barely habitable island and the rest resorted to cannibalism, eating the bodies of crewmates who had died.
Melville wrote later: ‘The reading of this wondrous story upon the landless sea and so close to the very latitude of the shipwreck had a surprising effect on me.’
For his novel, he also drew on an 1839 article in Knickerbocker Magazine about the capture of a white sperm whale nicknamed Mocha Dick (Mocha is a small island off Chile), who had reportedly destroyed more than 20 whaling ships and escaped another 80 over 28 years.
These accounts were only the starting point for Melville. Into the pot he mixed philosophy, comedy, tragic obsession and epic adventure.
he was revolutionary in giving indigenous characters the same humanity and nobility as the Americans on the boat.
Melville’s genius was not recognised until after his death. he spent the last 20 years of his life as a customs inspector for the port of New york.
Kathy Riley, Frome, Somerset.
QUESTION It’s claimed Twenty20 cricket was invented in 2003, but haven’t club teams been playing this format for years?
IN The 1960s, I played cricket for my dad’s firm, Dennis Printers, in the Scarborough and District evening League. The format was 20 six-ball overs, but some matches played 14 eight-ball overs. This short format didn’t suit my boycott-like Dad, who was often instructed: ‘Get on with it!’
Guy Jibson, Loughborough, Leics.
I PLAYED T20 cricket in the summer of 1967 at RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus.
We made up the rules for the game. each player would bowl two overs except the wicket keeper, hence 20 overs. The batting side could only amass 25 runs per player before they had to retire.
We were challenged by different sections on the camp. The losing team had to pay for a dustbin full of ice and beer.
George Lash, Hawkinge, Kent.
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