Fatal condition hits young

They were lively and healthy young adults enjoying their lives.  Some were still at school, while others were starting new careers or moving out of their family home for the first time.  Then their lives were cut short without warning. 

Now the faces of the eight victims of “sudden cardiac death” are to feature on an awareness-raising postcard to be distributed among young people.  The campaign has been organised by national charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY). 

Area organiser, Pauline Jolly, of Swanland, lost son Anthony Lancaster (left), 17, to the condition in 2002.  She wants all children to be screened for sudden cardiac death. 

It is because of CRY’s work that doctors have recently started advising families who have lost loved ones to screen their other children. 

“Some people have lost three children before someone’s actually told them they should screen their family,” she said. 

The eight faces represent 400 people under the age of 35 who die each year nationally from sudden cardiac death – an umbrella term for the undetected heart conditions that strike healthy, active young people suddenly. 

The postcard, unveiled in Hull today by CRY, will be distributed throughout Yorkshire to raise awareness of the condition. 

Also among victims featured in 20-year-old Jodie Hanson, who died on June 24 last year. 

Jodie, of Market Weighton, had just moved in with her sister, Danielle, and was enjoying her new career as a health care worker. 

“She was in bed at the time and she had what looked like a fit,” said her mother, Christine. 

“The best way to describe it is that electrical pulses in the heart short-circuited.” 

Ms Hanson said sudden cardiac death could strike when victims were doing high amounts of activity or when they are resting. 

“It was terrible for the family because she was a very healthy girl”, she said. 

“She was a very lively, outgoing person, always on the go with a lovely, fabulous personality and could get along with everybody.”

It is hoped hundreds of people will post the cards to their local MPs to help support the charity’s awareness campaign. 

Each month, a new card will be launched portraying victims from 12 different regions across the UK.  

The condition is treatable if detected by a test available through the NHS. 

Others on the first postcard include Vicky Johnson, 20, of West Yorkshire, who died in August 2003; Jamie Bucknell, 14, of York, who died in November 2001; Dominic O’Loughhlin, 11, of West Yorkshire, who died on September 1, 1994; David Harry, 15, of York, who died in October 2004; Joanne Russell, 32, of West Yorkshire, who died on May 20, 2004 and Mike Scott, 17, or North Yorkshire, who died on September 18, 1996.