Cardiac Screening Campaign
Help bring a cardiac screening event to North East Lincolnshire
Lincs Inspire is supporting a campaign, led by Monica Chatterton MBE, to bring a cardiac screening event to the Grimsby Health & Wellbeing Centre.
Monica's Story
Monica’s daughter, Josephine (Jo) Chatterton, died suddenly aged 24 in 1999. Her devastated family didn’t know what she had died from for three months, and they learnt that she’d had died from a Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD).
Jo had an undiagnosed heart condition that would have been picked up with a screening.
To mark what would have been Jo’s 50th year, Monica’s family has launched an awareness campaign to prevent similar tragedies. They have joined forces with the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) to raise funds for 100 young people to be screened in a special day-long session in North East Lincolnshire.
A Just Giving page has been launched to raise the £6,800 needed to bring the equipment and specialists to the area.
Monica and her family are hoping to enlist the community’s support to raise the funds, from individuals to schools, from local businesses to sports clubs.
Monica Chatterton MBE, former Chief Executive of the Grimsby homeless charity Doorstep, said her family had thought long and hard about a doing something in her daughter’s memory.
Despite the passing years, as a family we still live with the devastation of losing Jo.
The sudden loss of a young person shatters families, coming out of the blue with no apparent prior medical warning.
Josephine’s death in 1999 came just after she had achieved a master’s degree in music at Huddersfield University, setting her on course for a career in Music Therapy.
She had stopped off at Morrison’s in the town on the way to the gym at around 9.25am. She collapsed and died in the supermarket.
So many questions went through our minds with no immediate answers: what happened, how, and more importantly, why?
We had to wait three months before we found out at her inquest she died from ventricular dysplasia, a rare genetic heart disorder which led to sudden cardiac death.
In memory of Jo, we want to try and alleviate other family’s devastation at losing a young person to a sudden cardiac death by raising funds to support a CRY screening event in North East Lincolnshire for young people aged 14 to 35.
About CRY
Every week in the UK, 12 young people (aged 35 and under) die suddenly from a previously undiagnosed heart condition. 80% of these deaths will occur with no prior symptoms.
Since CRY was founded in 1995, around 318,000 young people have been tested, identifying more than 1,050 with potentially life-threatening conditions and 3,000 with non-life-threatening which can cause problems in later life, if not monitored or treated.
The CRY team manage each ECG testing session, lasting between five and 10 minutes. The results are sent out to clients within four weeks and GPs are informed of abnormal results.
Lincs Inspire's Support
Lincs Inspire is delighted to be backing this campaign and look forward to hosting the screening at the Health & Wellbeing Centre – a date will be fixed when the funds are in place.
Often, sudden cardiac death affects young people who are involved in sport. It is a silent killer. A CRY screening event in our area will help our local community by providing free heart screenings for young people aged 14-35, aiming to identify potential cardiac issues early.
Along with hosting the screening event, further information will soon be available about a Sponsored Family Fun Run, in which funds raised will go towards the North East Lincolnshire screening event.
