Teen completes her heart-starting mission

A selfless teenager has completed her mission to donate a potentially life-saving defibrillator to every school in her community.
Cody Hartley has donated a defib to her former primary school,  Thorpe Primary School,  to help save lives, and has started a  campaign to get one in every school and public place as part of our first aid campaign.  18 October 2013.  Picture Bruce RollinsonCody Hartley has donated a defib to her former primary school,  Thorpe Primary School,  to help save lives, and has started a  campaign to get one in every school and public place as part of our first aid campaign.  18 October 2013.  Picture Bruce Rollinson
Cody Hartley has donated a defib to her former primary school, Thorpe Primary School, to help save lives, and has started a campaign to get one in every school and public place as part of our first aid campaign. 18 October 2013. Picture Bruce Rollinson

Cody Hartley, from Thorpe, raised enough funds to install the equipment, used to treat sudden cardiac arrests, at East Ardsley Primary School.

It is the sixth she has paid for through fundraising she began at the age of just 11.

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Posting on her Facebook page Cody’s Defibrillator Campaign, the 15-year-old said: “I finally got to complete my mission of making a defibrillator friendly community when I donated my sixth defibrillator to East Ardsley Primary School meaning that I have now placed a defibrillator into every school in the local area, and karate club.”

The latest defibrillator cost £1,000 and the money was raised by supermarket bag packing, car boot sales and coffee mornings.

Mum Sheree Hartley said: “We are very proud of Cody. I’m proud because of her age as well as the fact that she does a lot of it by herself.

“She gives up all her weekends to fundraise for people that she doesn’t even know.”

The device was installed at the primary school on July 21.

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Mrs Hartley added: “When she first started doing this she read about a little boy that had died from a cardiac arrest but would have survived if there was a defibrillator.

“She wanted to make sure that there were defibrillators in the East Ardsley area.”

Cody added: “Although I didn’t know this boy something about his story just stuck. “So I managed to contact his family, they had set up The Oliver King Foundation.

“I promised them that I would get defibrillators into as many schools and public places as I could.

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“And I said I would also raise as much awareness of defibrillators as possible.”

The inspirational youngsters says she has no plans to stop.

And she has already begun fundraising for defibrillator number seven and last week organised a charity event at the Bedford Arms pub in East Ardsley.

Mrs Hartley said Cody is now starting to lead talks in schools, and at local clubs in the area, to raise awareness about the need for defibrillators.

Cody won the Youngster of the Year accolade in 2013 at the Yorkshire Young Achievers Awards for her efforts.

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