Students have raised more than £500 for charity through a gruelling 24-hour CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) challenge.
A group of Paramedic Science students from the recently formed University of Worcester Paramedic Society took on the CPR-a-thon challenge to continuously perform CPR on a dummy, raising awareness and £588 for Little Hearts Matter.
Staff and students, as well as members of the public and even off duty crews from West Midlands Ambulance Service and South Western Ambulance Service, all dropped into the Students’ Union at the St John’s Campus to take part. However, much of the challenge, particularly through the night, was completed by the students in the society.
People swapped in throughout the day to ensure one person was always performing CPR at any one time to complete the challenge, which ran from 9am on Thursday (April 11) until 9am today (April 12), with 116 people taking part. Little Hearts Matter is a national UK charity which helps people affected by the diagnosis of single ventricle heart condition.
Joanna Moulder, 20, who is in the second year of her Paramedic Science degree and Chair of the Paramedic Society, said: “It’s been really good and I’m very proud of the society. It’s definitely been a challenge; the middle of the night was the hardest and I’m definitely tired! We have had a lot of lecturers come down and other staff as well as students so it’s been really nice. It’s interesting that a lot of people have said if I came across someone I wouldn’t know what to do – I hope they would feel more comfortable doing it now.
“Some people heard it on the radio and wanted to learn how to do CPR – we had a family come in, that was one of the highlights for us. We had someone come in on the way back from a night shift at the hospital. Many of those who took part haven’t done CPR before so we have gone through the hand placement, the depth and the rate they need to do, so it’s raising awareness of CPR and how to do it. One of the most important things is having a good technique and being effective because you need to get it right to make a real difference. That early onset of CPR prior to an ambulance is important. We’re teaching skills that could save someone’s life.”
She added that they chose the charity because they were keen to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of undiagnosed heart conditions, such as a congenital heart defect, with the public as they had come across them while on placement.