An eight-year-old boy who died from sudden cardiac death is featured in a campaign to prevent others being killed by the condition.
Charlie Morettes’ heart suddenly stopped while he was playing rounders at his school in Sutton-at-Hone open May 16 last year.
He had been healthy and had showed no symptoms to suggest cardiac problems, but a post-mortem revealed a heat defect.
Charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) raises awareness of potentially life-threatening cardiac problems in young people, promoting and providing screening to detect them.
Its research shows that on average 12 people under 35-years-old die from sudden cardiac death in the UK every week.
CRY launched a postcard campaign to raise awareness of this outside the Houses of Parliament last Tuesday (October 14).
The postcard shows the faces of 12 people from the south east of England who were killed by the condition, including Charlie.
His mother Allison Spalding of Cedar Drive, Sutton-at-Hone, said: “The faces on the postcard make the deaths personal to people who aren’t aware of sudden cardiac death, and will hopefully make them think about getting themselves or their children screened.”
The 34-year-old added: “If it saves just one more person it will be worth it.”
Postcards will be sent to every region in the UK, featuring the faces of 12 victims from each area.
CRY hopes this will encourage people to ask their MP to lobby the Government to make screening more widely available on the NHS.
CRY chief executive Alison Cox MBE said: “We have launched this campaign to emphasise the importance of screening and the fact that so many of these tragic cases affecting fit and healthy young people could have been prevented.”
Allison Spalding is the Kent representative for CRY and, along with her husband Tony and family, has raised more than £40,000 for the charity.
They are holding a fundraising ball for CRY in Brands Hatch on November 8. For details and tickets email
