- December 20, 2024
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Mackenzie "ZZ" Nichols practices CPR on a dummy. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Allied Health Academy Director Kelley Lemon and Mackenzie "ZZ" Nichols. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Mackenzie "ZZ" Nichols and fellow students Craig Robbins and Clover Milatzo demonstrate how to act in an emergency involving the need for CPR. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Mackenzie "ZZ" Nichols and fellow students Ben Barak, Craig Robbins and Clover Milatzo demonstrate how to act in an emergency involving the need for CPR. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
ZZ Nichols usually gets her Starbucks fix in the morning at the cafe on West Granada Boulevard.
But on May 1, she saw that the line was long, and she had to get to school. So the Seabreeze High School junior opted to get her drink at the Starbucks on East Granada instead. She mobile-ordered her drink, and took another unusual detour on her way to school: Instead of taking Halifax Drive, she took A1A.
At 7:54 a.m., Ormond Beach Police and Ormond Beach Fire Rescue were dispatched to a major crash at A1A between Harvard Drive and Milsap Road.
The crash resulted in the death of 26-year-old Mary Pezza, of Ormond Beach, who was a passenger in car driven by her husband. Charges for the driver who struck into the couple's car that morning — 26-year-old Wyatt Dickerson — are pending, police say. According to a GoFundMe for Pezza, Dickerson was driving at 90 mph when he struck the Pezzas' car.
Nichols arrived at the scene of the crash at 7:55 a.m., ahead of the dispatched first responders. She pulled off the side of the road and immediately joined the group of people and lifeguards that had approached the crash.
"I knew that I had to get out and help because I have the skillset," Nichols said.
She's CPR certified. She knows how to correctly use a defibrillator. She knows how to treat wounds and handle trauma in an emergency situation.
And she's not the only Seabreeze student with these skills. All who are part of Seabreeze's Allied Health Academy receive the same training.
The Seabreeze Allied Health Academy is a four-year program where students apply in eight grade to start their freshman year. In the first year, they learn medical skills and become CPR certified. In their sophomore year, they take anatomy and physiology — a class Allied Health Academy Director Kelley Lemon said shows the rigor the students need to continue in the program.
Then in their junior and senior years, the students take courses that give them the opportunity to become a certified medical administrative assistant, electrocardiogram (or EKG) technicians and patient care technicians, the latter two which are of critical importance to local area hospitals, Lemon said.
Seabreeze currently has about 200 students in the academy. Most who complete the program go on to pursue medical careers.
Lemon, who has been teaching the program for five years, said that she had 28 graduating seniors who were part of the academy. Of the 28, only one is not pursuing a career in medicine or a related field. She's going into law instead.
"It's pretty powerful — it's nice to know you're making an impact," Lemon said. "But all the students have had an impact on us too. We become family."
Lemon met Nichols long before either of them joined the academy. She was her sixth grade science teacher at Ormond Beach Middle School.
"So now I'm getting to have her again as a high schooler — it's really cool to see how much she's grown," Lemon said. "She's very energetic. She's passionate about what she wants to do. She's got a lot of big aspirations."
When Lemon heard that Nichols was one of the first students on the scene of the fatal May 1 crash, she had conflicting feelings. The first being that no one ever wants a tragedy to happen, and that she never wants her students to be in a situation like that. The other? She was proud that her students knew what to do in an emergency situation while keeping herself safe.
What does she hope this instance says about the academy?
"I hope that it says that we're doing what we need to do, that we're helping prepare these kids for their futures in the medical field," Lemon said. "We have pretty high standards. We like to set the bar high but all of our students want to maintain that level."
Seabreeze Principal Tucker Harris greets his students and staff every morning. On May 1, a teacher informed him there had been a bad crash just a couple blocks down on A1A.
Not knowing if a student or teacher was involved, he drove to the scene of the accident. He asked the first responders if any involved were his kids, as he refers to his students. He's told no, and then he spots Nichols in the middle of the scene.
"I didn't even notice her there at first because she was working with all the first responders and EMTs and paramedics," Harris said.
There a few students watching from the sidewalk that Harris planned to escort back to school with him, so he asked Nichols if she wanted to go back with him as well.
"She said, 'Mr. Harris, I'd prefer to stay,'" he recalled.
Harris agreed and excused her from her first period class.
Later in the day, two employees from Volusia County Beach Safety came by the school to offer Nichols a card with information on county employee counseling following the traumatic event. The employees told Harris that they had no idea Nichols was a high school student. They thought she was a nurse.
As principal, anytime he hears of his students applying the skills they learned at school in a real world situation, makes him proud, Harris said. But to see it in action is another aspect entirely.
"It's one thing to have a dummy in front of you that they can't move, but to see it on the fly?" Harris said. "I lifeguarded on Daytona Beach for a number of years, so to see the kid responding in crisis and being controlled in crisis — that's impressive. There's adults that can't handle that."
This past school year, Lemon conducted an exercise with her students involving gloves and shaving cream. The goal? Successfully remove the gloves without getting shaving cream on your skin — teaching her students how to remove their gloves without making contact with any bodily fluids or blood that may be present.
The first thing Nichols did when she ran into the fatal crash scene was put on gloves. She found them in a lifeguard's med kit.
"Miss Lemon really stressed — especially this year and ... the past years — that you don't go on the scene without checking that it's safe and putting on gloves," Nichols said.
Seabreeze, Lemon said, has the highest pass rate for certification exams out of the other Allied Health Academy programs in the district.
"I think that speaks to the caliber of our students," she said. "I like to think I have a little bit of a part in it, but mostly, it's them — they want to be successful, and so they work to get there. I just facilitate that process."
Her students make her proud all the time, whether it's when they tell her of their career and college plans or how they're putting their skills to work. One of her students, she said, is about to head on a study abroad trip to Colombia to work with underserved populations.
Next year's senior class will be the Seabreeze academy's biggest so far at 35 students, including Nichols.
Nichols, who will be working as a lifeguard this summer, said she hopes to go into emergency medicine after graduating as part of the 2025 class. The May 1 crash wasn't the first time she jumped in to help in an emergency situation; earlier this year, she saw a motorcycle involved car crash after school and she helped first responders then too.
She wouldn't have known what to do in either instance if it wasn't for the program, she said.
After the May 1 crash, Nichols said she had some students ask her why she decided to help. Nichols said it was because she's CPR certified — and that's the point of the certification.
"If there's ever a chance, I think everybody should be CPR certified in re-certified," Nichols said. "You never know when you'll have to use it. It could just be a freak accident someday at work or it could be driving to school after getting Starbucks."
