While families across Wakefield enjoy Christmas, Jackie and David Johnson face an agonising wait to see if their eight-month-old granddaughter carries the deadly condition which killed their daughter.

Vicky Johnson was just 20 when she collapsed on holiday in August and never regained consciousness.

An inquest this week ruled sudden adult death syndrome (SADS) was to blame, and Vicky’s devastated family now have to undergo tests to see if they are carriers of the hereditary condition.

Mrs Johnson’s biggest fear is that Vicky’s baby daughter Shannon has the heart condition, which kills up to eight young adults every week in Britain.

She said: “When Vicky died we were told at first that they couldn’t find anything and I just kept thinking ‘how can anyone died and there be no reason.’

“We were then told the pathologists suspected the cause of death was SADS.

“After it was confirmed I went on to the SADS website and it hit me like a ton of bricks – it was hereditary.  I had come to the conclusion that Shannon was not going to be at risk and then all of a sudden she was in danger.  And not only Shannon but my other three daughters – because if I am a carrier, I could have passed it on to them.”

Mrs Johnson from Canning Avenue in Alverthorpe has planned a meeting with Wakefield MP David Hinchliffe in January.

She hopes he will lobby Parliament about screening schoolchildren for the condition.  For now she is playing the waiting game until the family sees a Leeds heart specialist in the New Year.

SADS is a condition similar to cot death.  It’s a broad term for irregular heart rhythms in young adults who are usually fit and active – and consequently put more strain on their hearts.

If detected early enough it can be treated.

Former Leeds United footballer and Wales manager, Terry Yorath’s son died from SADS aged just 15 and when Cameroon international Marc Vivien Foe collapsed on the pitch in June, SADS was to blame.

Mrs Johnson, 41, said Vicky, who died on holiday in Whitby in August, was extremely fit and healthy due to a love of horses and ponies.

She added: “We are just devastated about the loss of Vicky and how this little baby has a chance of having the same condition.

“There’s a 50/50 chance that sufferer’s children have SADS which is a very worrying figure.

“It’s so tragic because you just don’t expect a 20-year-old to drop dead suddenly.  It’s a silent killer.

“They test for other things like rubella and that isn’t as threatening, so why not test for heart conditions?  It really makes me angry and this cannot go on because it is a silent killer which is taking far too many young people.”