NHI Mourns Jim Charlesworth

Jim Charlesworth (right) responds to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

The massage therapist who created what is believed to be the first team of massage therapists to provide massage to emergency-response workers has died from cancer, age 53.

In 1989, massage therapist James “Jim” Charlesworth was an admissions counselor for the National Holistic Institute in Emeryville, California, when the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit.

“Across the street from NHI was the horrible highway collapse,” read an obituary posted on the website of Emergency Response Massage International. “He mobilized a massage team and worked with many volunteers giving 8,000 massages to relief workers to ease those providing rescue efforts. The mayor of San Francisco acknowledged his commitment to the city.”

Charlesworth later worked with the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) to launch the association’s Massage Emergency Response Teams (MERT) program…Click Here to read the complete story at Massage Magazine.

For an interesting bit of history, Click Here to view two 1990 earthquake-related articles from our archives written for the Massage Therapy Journal by Jim, the former NHI Director of Community Relations, and Ken Bridgeman, former NHI Program Coordinator.

Jim (far back left) massages during the relief effort.