Over 200 young people have been given free heart screenings thanks to fundraising efforts.
CRY for Eden has spent the last 15 months raising money through sponsored walks, paddleboard events, a charity ball, a 12-hour bougie bounce and more in order to give young people access to a weekend of free heart screenings.
The ring-fenced charity was set up as a branch of Cardiac Risk in the Young – a UK Charity which aims to prevent sudden cardiac deaths in young people through awareness, screening, research and support for affected families.
Donna Mills, 44, of Clifton, near Penrith, is the driving force behind the Eden charity and said the weekend – which took place on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 – has proved a successful first of more to come.
She said: “We’ve been doing fundraising events for about 15 months now to carry out a screening weekend and we’ve now held our first at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Penrith.
“We screened 200 people at a cost of £13,000 and of those 200 we picked up six who were referred for further investigations.
“Because we’ve been fundraising for so long it was really nice to see it come together and get people in.”
Around 12 people between the ages of 14 to 35 die every week in the UK alone from undetected heart conditions.
Screenings are able to pick up hidden issues and can in some cases be a life-saving process.
Donna added: “Screenings are particularly good for people interested in sport. If you have an underlying health problem and you’re doing a lot of exercise, it can put a lot of strain of a person’s heart.
“In places like Italy it’s actually mandatory that everyone has to be screened if they are involved in sports. The wider Cardiac Risk in The Young team are campaigning for national screening campaigns – but for now we will do our best with fundraising.
“Around 80 per cent of people that have these undetected heart problems don’t come with prior symptoms or warnings, so they can go to sleep and not wake up or collapse on a football pitch suddenly. It’s a dangerous thing for people to have if they don’t know they’ve got it.
“So we’re planning to keep going with the screening weekends. We’ve got another booked in for October and one for February next year as well, so as long as people keep coming and supporting the service and fundraising, we will keep putting them on for as long as we possibly can.”
Screenings only take around 15 to 20 minutes and people aged between 14 – 35 from across Cumbria are welcome to attend the Penrith-based screening weekends.
Interested people are able to book a screening via a booking link. Upon arrival, height and weight is taken followed by an ECG.
An appointment is then given on the day with a cardiologist and if any problems are detected on the ECG or in family history an echocardiogram is then also given on the same day.
Referrals are then able to be made for those with problems requiring further investigation and the cardiologist also writes to then GPs of all who take part with referrals and recommendations.
Donna added: “I initially set off with CRY for Eden because I got my two elder children screened. I didn’t really know much about it, I was just lucky to find someone running this kind of thing elsewhere.
“After they were screened I kept thinking about how my children and my husband still play sport and I was watching them playing with their friends and I couldn’t stop thinking about the stats.
“So I thought instead of thinking about it, why don’t I do something about it and the local community has really got behind it.
“We are doing the screenings in Penrith – but people from other areas of Cumbria can come and have it done, they’re more than welcome to get in touch and be booked on for October.”
People interested in helping fundraise of booking a screening slot can get in touch with CRY for Eden via their Facebook page.
