Hometown student raises money for LUCAS device

The Cadott Area Fire and Rescue Service will now have access to a life-saving device known as the LUCAS chest compressor. The machine delivers consistent chest compressions to someone experiencing cardiac arrest.

Through a Spaghetti with Santa fundraiser Dec. 8, at the rescue department building, enough money was collected to purchase the $16,000 lifesaving device.

Cadott graduate Payton Freagon is taking an event marketing class at the Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) and as an end-of-year project, he is required to organize an event for a non-profit group.

“So, I came and talked to the fire and the ambulance, and basically…we’re raising money for a LUCAS CPR device, which is a compression machine,” said Freagon. “Boyd (rescue department) has a couple, but Cadott doesn’t have one and they’d really like one.”

Together with fellow CVTC classmates Lucas Printz and Brittany Hattrem, Freagon came up with the idea to have a spaghetti feed, where kids could visit with Santa and basket raffles would be available.

With donations prior to the event, Freagon and his friends

See LUCAS DEVICE/ Page 3 raised $12,000 and were positive they would get the rest of the funds on the day of the event. All items for the raffle were donated, as was most of the food.

EMT Brittany Walters said the department has wanted to do something to raise money for a LUCAS for a couple years.

“So, it was a perfect opportunity,” she said. “We just kind of ran with it, and put it together and worked together. It worked out awesome.”

With long distance transports, the LUCAS frees up an extra person and Walters says the device provides more effective CPR, which can be used going up and down flights of stairs.

“With us being such a large service area and having such rural areas, a lot of times, with the ambulance, you maybe only have two or three EMTs on a call,” said Walters. “So when you tie one or two people up doing compression, switching on and off gets very tiresome. You don’t have any breaks in compression (with the LUCAS), which is huge.”

Although he doesn’t have any family serving on the department, Freagon does have a lot of friends who serve and says that one day, he might get involved, as well.

Walters says the students have been great to work with and that she thanks them from the bottom of her heart for getting the project going.

“It’s a huge, huge deal to us on the ambulance.”