On Friday, March 28th, Nashoba EMTs held a 24 hour CPR marathon in the high school cafeteria to raise money for the Bonazzoli Scholarship Fund, which is awarded to graduating cadets of the EMT program.

The week before the fundraiser, the cadets were dedicated to selling as many raffle tickets as possible to Nashoba Staff and students during lunches and at the marathon itself.  The raffles ranged everywhere from spa gift baskets, to handmade jewelry, to Red Sox memorabilia.  All of these were donated to the cadets by businesses and other residences of the Nashoba region.  A great deal of these donors also gave monetary gifts instead of baskets in order to help reach the fund’s goal.

The marathon ran from 5pm-10 pm on Friday and 10am-5pm on Saturday for anyone who was interested in becoming CPR certified or wanted to just spend some quality time with life saving people.  The cadets also supplied coffee, free blood pressure checks, heart health information, and tours of an ambulance, fire truck, and police cruiser to the public.

The cadets themselves spent the whole 24 hours at the school constantly doing CPR to supplied dummies.  They were all paired up and according to graduating cadet, Nyshidha Gurijala, “there were 48 shifts in total and each person on average did two total hours of CPR.” She stated that during each shift, “one person does chest compressions, and the other person gives breaths via a Bag Valve Mask.”  They then alternated roles every five cycles, “one cycle being 30 compressions plus two breaths.”

Some lucky EMTs got shifts during reasonable hours whereas others woke up at 2am, for example, and then returned to bed after their shift was finished.  They spent the night inside the Nashoba cafeteria and were generously supplied with food and refreshments for the full 24 hours by friends and families.  After all, surely those students work up an appetite with all those compressions.

Thanks to all the friends, families, and businesses that donated the EMT’s scholarship fund, the cadets reached their final goal.  Good luck to all the graduating cadets seeing as they all deserve to be rewarded for the hard work and life-saving efforts they have supplied to the Nashoba community.