Published: Sunday, 14th March, 2010 8:00am

Heart campaign backed by widow

Comments (0) | Print | Email

THE family of an FC Bracknell manager who died from an undetected heart problem is backing a campaign for more screening for the condition.

Birch Hill man Simon Pangborn was only 35 when he collapsed from Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC) in July 2004, just hours after he went to hospital feeling faint and tired.

Now his widow, Samantha, 42, and their four children are backing a postcard campaign by charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (Cry) urging people to lobby their MPs to join an All Parliamentary Group pressing for more research, awareness and health checks for the young.

Samantha said: "I hope that it makes everybody more aware because it is something that comes from nowhere. If screening was made more available to young people more cases could be picked up."

Simon's photo (above, top row, 2nd from right) has been included on a campaign postcard that was launched on Friday last week and features 12 young victims - representative of the 12 people nationwide who die every week from sudden death syndrome.

Simon ran his own photocopier and fax business in Bagshot and was very fit and healthy, running the London Marathon four times and setting up and managing the under 16 team at FC Bracknell, which now has a Fair Play shield in his memory.

Samantha said: "He had a lust for life and was very busy. He wasn't your classic example for heart problems at all."

Simon went to Frimley Park Hospital A&E feeling unwell but routine tests did not detect anything wrong and he was sent home on the understanding that he came back for further tests. However, within half an hour he had collapsed and was rushed back to hospital, where he later died.

Since then, the rest of the family have been screened for the condition and his sister Vanessa, 42, from Camberley, has been fitted with a defibrillator that re-starts the heart if it goes into an abnormal rhythm.

Simon and Samantha's children Harry, 16, George, 14, Phoebe, 12, all pupils at Easthampstead Park Community School in Great Hollands, and Annie, 10, who goes to Birch Hill Primary School, also have regular health checks.

Simon's parents Gill and Alan, from Frimley Green, and the family have committed themselves to fundraising and have so far raised £16,000 in Simon's name for Cry.

Cry's chief executive Alison Cox MB, who founded the charity 15 years ago to provide screening and support, said: "As the recorded incidence of sudden cardiac death rises it is time re-launch this powerful campaign to help emphasise the importance of screening and the fact that so many of these tragic cases affecting fit and healthy young people could have been prevented."

See www.c-r-y.org.uk