Feeling the effects of sleep deprivation: 47 ABC stays up for 24 hours

Linda Hurley, the director of the Sleep Lab at PRMC says, “You’re so sharp and you’re young. You’re energetic. I was afraid you would not be as bad as you were.”  

Hurley’s response was in reference to 47 ABC’s Jobina Fortson’s memory and reaction test results after being awake for 24 hours. It wasn’t easy. She read magazines, hung out with the lab techs, and took lots of walks.

The experiment was sparked by the debate over the current Ocean City fire fighter shift change being put forward. They work 24 hours on, 72 hours off. The town is proposing a 12 hour rotating shift. The mayor is citing safety concerns as the reason.

To prove that theory, Hurley performed her tests on Jobina after a full-nights sleep Thursday morning. Hurley performed the same ones Friday morning. The first test was to read a list of words and then write them all down.

Jobina says, “Why is this so hard? Hurley says, “Because you haven’t slept.”  

Jobina tried her best. On Thursday, she got 7 out of 15 and she thought she had 6 out of 15 the second time around. However, one of her words was wrong. It wasn’t even on the list!

Linda says, “We are definitely worse. We have false memories here.”

During the next test, ten random objects were placed on a table. They were different ones from the day before. Jobina had 40 seconds to look, and then had to list them. 

She got 7 out of 10 objects correct, one less than the day before.  The biggest struggle was testing reaction timing. The goal was to click the tab when the traffic light turned green. Jobina got a score of .760. The day before it was .449. She was definitely slower on Friday, which Hurley says is the biggest safety issue.

Hurley goes on, “Your critical judgement, your ability to analyze, and quickly make a decision about a situation is not as good when you haven’t had enough sleep. That seems to be crucial in any type of emergency situation.”

47 ABC knows the limits of an impromptu study like this. Click here for previous research associated with the effects of sleep deprivation.