Widow backs heart research campaign

The widow of a rugby league player Danny Jones is backing a campaign for more research into the inherited heart condition which killed her husband.

Mr Jones died last May of a sudden cardiac arrest while playing for Keighley Cougars, leaving wide Lizzie and baby twin Bobby and Phoebe.

Mrs Jones today pledged her support to a new British Heart Foundation campaign which is calling for better research into the genetic defect which can lead to suddn cardiac arrests.

“Raising our twins without Danny is hard,” said Mrs Jones.

“In future, they will be tested for the inherited condition that Danny died of. I just hope that by telling Danny’s story, more support will be given to finding new treatments for these conditions that could one day benefit my children.”

The British Heart Foundation estimates that more than 6,000 people are born each year in the UK with a genetic fault that puts them at a high risk of suffering from an inherited heart condition, which could lead to a heart attack or cardiac arrest.The heart charity says that in the UK as many as one in 120 people are born with the faulty gene that puts them at risk of potentially deadly conditions including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and familial hypercholesterolemia. This means that in the UK as many as half a million people are living with one of these genetic defects.

For some – including high profile sports people such as Danny Jones – there is no warning before the underlying condition causes a sudden, often fatal, cardiac arrest.