Campaign on sudden deaths 'rise'

The sudden deaths of 12 young people in Wales in recent years are highlighted on the campaign postcard and poster

A campaign to highlight the number of young people who die unexpectedly from a condition known as sudden cardiac death has been launched.

Campaigners claims 12 people each week lose their lives to it across the UK, a rise of 50% on previous estimates.

Anna Thomas' 21-year-old son Gareth died from sudden cardiac death two and a half years ago.

She said: "It is just like a light going out - and having met other families, that's exactly what happens."

Aberystwyth University graduate Gareth Thomas, from Llantrisant, Vale of Glamorgan, was living with friends in Cardiff when he died.

Ms Thomas, a nurse, said her son had just returned from a two-week skiing trip. She had seen him three times in the week before his death, including the night before.

She said: "We saw him at midnight because he'd called home after watching the rugby. He said goodbye and went back to his house in Cardiff where he was sharing with friends and that evening we had a knock on the door."

CAUSES OF SUDDEN CARDIAC DEATH Inherited heart problems that can cause SCD: Long QT syndrome - a disorder of the electrical activity of the heart Brugada Syndrome- irregularities of the electrical activity of the heart Inherited cardiomyopathies or heart muscle diseases

She said they endured "every parent's worst nightmare, the knock on the door by two policemen".

"He was absolutely healthy, he played football every week. He had done for years."

The family have become active with the charity Cry, Cardiac Risk in the Young.

In a testimony on Cry's website, Ms Thomas said: "We will never get over the horrors of that evening and can only imagine how it must have been for Gareth's friends."

Gareth's sister, Sian, took part in Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth art project in London's Trafalgar Square to raise awareness of the condition.

Cry cites figures 2006 official statistics - on sudden death among people aged 35 and under - to claim that the number of UK young people who lose their lives to the sudden cardiac death now stands at 12 every week, half as many more as previously thought.

Gareth Thomas had visited his family the night before he died

It said a survey showed that overall understanding of sudden cardiac death in the young remains low in Wales with over half of people (53%) saying they were not awareness of the scale of deaths.

The campaign is to unveil a poster-sized version of a postcard it has produced featuring the photos of 12 young people from Wales who lost their lives suddenly to previously undetected heart conditions.

Cry founder and chief executive Alison Cox MBE said: "These 12 faces are just a "snap-shot" of the problem and we need to keep up the pressure and engage support from as many MPs as possible to ensure we are doing everything we can to prevent other families from experiencing similar tragedies."

The poster is to be unveiled at a ceremony at the Cardiff Centre Novotel.