Young people do not drop dead suddenly, for no reason. Katy Edwards spoke to parents who are campaigning for better heart screening programmes to tackle cardiac risk in the young.
When 33-year-old semi-professional footballer Aaron Gardiner collapsed and died following a pre-season training run earlier this summer, an initial post-mortem examination proved inconclusive. The Ipswich father of three and AFC Sudbury star was subsequently revealed to have died from natural causes brought on by Cardiac Arrhythmia (heart failure).
His death came almost exactly a year after that of another footballer, 28-year-old Manchester City and Cameroon footballer Marc-Vivien Foe, who collapsed during an international match in Lyon. Medical teams struggled to resuscitate him but he died later in hospital. His death stunned the football world and the millions of people watching the match.
Foe (on the right in the picture) was at the peak of his career and outwardly fit and healthy. A first autopsy failed to confirm a cause of death. But two weeks later, a second autopsy found that he had a heart condition known as Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), an incurable condition that causes excessive thickening of the heart muscle.
Sudden, unexplained deaths in the young may be more common than we have previously been led to believe, according to the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY). CRY believes as many as eight young people (under 35) succumb to Sudden Cardiac Death every week. Often they are talented sportsmen and women in their prime
