A Worcester grandmother who has been campaigning for six-years to make young people more aware of the importance of being tested for heart defects made a huge step forward this week.

Joy Powell, who is a Worcester fundraiser for Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) used some of the funds to organise the first scientific lecture and electrocardiogram (ECG) screening in the city yesterday.

She joined CRY in December 1997 after her friend Sherilyn Rampton's 20-year-old son Craig died from a condition classed under sudden death syndrome while playing football.

She has now raised more than £27000 for the Craig Rampton Memorial Fund and believes unnecessary deaths could be avoided if more young people between 14 and 35 were tested for heart defects using an ECG.

The lecture at Worcester College of Technology was conducted by Dr Greg Whyte, chairman and head of research for CRY, for students in their second year of a sports science diploma.

After lecturing them on the advantages of ECG testing all the students were invited to Barbourne Health centre to have an ECG.

"This is a huge step forward for Worcester" said Joy.

We raised enough money to buy an ECG machine for Berwyn House Surgery just over a year ago and we have been promising to do a screening in Worcester since then.

"It is a simple process which in the long run could save someone's life and it is my ambition to screen as many young people as possible."

Joy's write up of the event.

We started the day at 8.15 am.  Sherralyn and I were very anxious.  Apart from the fact that it was our first ECG, the circumstances were a little different from the norm.  Dave Cooter was the first student to be tested, and he agreed to be photographed for the Newspaper.  Dave insisted on making a generous donation of £10.00 to CRY.

John Ioannou told us he had his first ECG in Cyprus, where it is compulsory for all athletes to be tested for heart disease from the age of 13 years.

We started the morning with 26 students agreeing to be tested and finished the day at 40.  Monica was exhausted by the end of the day.

Chris Cattell (who organised the venue) without prior warning three two classes of students at me and said ‘explain what you are going to do and why’.  I nearly had a heart attack myself.

Greg’s lecture was fascinating.  He held their attention for over an hour.  Chris Cattell, Sports Science Lecturer, Aaron Stevens, Sports Physics Lecturer, and Andy Price, Head of Leisure and Tourism, all attended the lecture and discussed it at length with Greg afterwards.  They also had ECG tests.

Chris and Aaron both want to make it a yearly event and were discussing fund raising to achieve this goal.

We, the CRY team, were very impressed with the attitude and dedication of all the students concerned.

Tony had writer’s cramp by the end of the day and still had to drive 3 hrs. home.

The Principal and Chris took Greg out for lunch and he was very impressed.  The College arranged a mountain of sandwiches and cake for us and we all agreed it was a very well organised and pleasant day.