Hundreds of heart screenings in memory of Jamie Loncaster
Family and friends of 13-year-old Jamie Loncaster who died from an undetected heart condition have raised over £10,000 to fund more heart screenings in East Yorkshire.
The dad of an East Yorkshire teenager who died from a rare heart problem wants to see more young people screened for the condition.
Family and friends of 13-year-old Jamie Loncaster from Swanland have just raised £10,000 so that 300 cardiac screenings can be offered to youngsters.
At least twelve 14-35 year olds die of undiagnosed heart conditions every week in the UK.
Jamie's dad, Graham Loncaster, now raises awareness of cardiac risk in the young and told us:
"If we can help one other family not go through the pain and heartbreak that we have had to go through then it will have all been absolutely worth it. It is something that will stay with us all forever, it has completely rocked our world and a lot of other people's too.
"Jamie was seemingly fit and healthy with no apparent symptoms of illness, but tragically he went to bed and died in his sleep. We found him the next morning.
"These screenings are so important, to think somebody could walk in off the street and can then come out realising that they have actually got a defect in their heart that they didn't know they had and as life changing as that can be at the time, it is a much better situation than the one we are in now.
"Friends of ours who have had their children screened now, one was found to have a minor issue with their heart that needs regular monitoring and has had a minor procedure to rectify the problem. In recent screenings that we have done at South Hunsley School, we had 200 people through and from that they had 5 referrals to GPs for further investigation."
Jamie's family and friends recently embarked on a 160-mile cycle challenge from Morecame to Swanland and a 12km Total Warrior course to raise more than £10,000 for 300 heart screening tests.
“Ugly Duckling” riders (headed by Rich Foster) and “Total Warrior” ladies (Ruth Ciuffetelli, Claire Milner, Nichola Johnston, Sam Stathers, Lisa Bursell) raised the money.
For more information on Jamie's fund, head to: www.jamieloncaster.co.uk
For those wanting to find out more about how to get screened, you can book a cardiac screening by visiting: http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/cardiac-screening/
Or, if there has been a young (under 35) sudden death in the family, the family is entitled to be screened on the NHS.