ONE evening last week, 39-year-old businessman John Martin did what he often did - played a game of five-a-side football with his friends.
He’d played many games in the past. A fit and healthy man at the prime of his life, he should have been looking forward to playing many more games in the future.
Instead, tragically, last Wednesday he collapsed at the Powerleague five-a-side pitc
hes in Portobello. An ambulance was summoned and the heir to a £200 million luxury car dealership business was rushed to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Despite valiant efforts to save his life, he died.
It is thought that Mr Martin, right, whose father set up the city-based John Martin Group 40 years ago, suffered a massive heart attack.
How could something like that happen to a man who appeared fit, healthy and far from the stereotype of a potential heart attack victim. And if it happened to him, could it happen to any one of us?
In fact, one in 60 of us carries some kind of undetected heart defect. And one in 500 has a serious cardiac condition they may not even know about.
Strange as it sounds those with certain heart defects may actually live longer by doing less strenuous sport. Indeed, many survive into old age simply because they lead such sedentary lives that their hearts are not put under enough pressure to cause any major problem.
The tragic and untimely death of Mr Martin has close similarities to another awful incident played out on a football pitch, this time in front of the television cameras and an audience of millions. Cameroon international footballer Marc-Vivien Foe collapsed and died from a heart attack at the age of 28 while playing in a match against Colombia in France in June 2003.
It later emerged he had suffered a lifelong cardiac defect - one which may never have come to light had he not been a top sportsman.
A post-mortem found he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), the most common cause of sudden death in the under-30s which is estimated to affect around 10,000 people in the UK and claims the lives of between four and eight people every week.
Generally a genetic condition, it leads to excessive growth of the heart muscle which interferes with the heart’s normal contraction and relaxation. It can also affect people with otherwise normal hearts, such as sportsmen and women, when the strain of hard workouts can thicken and enlarge the heart muscle.
Prior to the fateful match, Foe was said to have suffered a bout of diarrhoea and vomiting - an episode that probably led to an electrolyte imbalance. That was enough to precipitate ventricular fibrillation, a fatal disturbance of the heart rhythm. He may have survived, had he not ventured on to the football pitch.
The condition is just one of a clutch of cardiac defects which many of us may well be suffering from right now, yet are completely unaware of.
Some are genetic, others the result of viral infections.
Some have seemingly minor symptoms which could be confused with a simple lack of physical fitness, yet all have the terrifying ability to strike sufferers, many of them young, down at any time.
Dr Stuart Shaw, consultant cardiologist at Western General Hospital, has seen occasional cases of sudden death due to hidden heart defects, although most of his work is with people where a heart condition is already diagnosed.
He says: "There are a number of causes of sudden death in young people, even teenagers, and these tend to be mainly genetic.
"For someone in their 30s, coronary heart troubles become more common than congenital ones and coronary disease can occur even at that age, even in fit people.
"So to avoid this, it’s important to have an overall healthy lifestyle and also to have a blood test if there’s a family history of high cholesterol levels."
Dr Shaw says keeping super-fit is a double-edged sword for people with hidden heart defects.
In 2001, 29-year-old top bodybuilder Chris Sneddon died from a suspected heart attack just minutes after a shadow boxing bout at Fauldhouse Football Club’s gym. Mr Sneddon, who lived in Linlithgow, had been in peak condition when he paraded for judges during the Mr Universe contest just months earlier.
And last year, mother-of-two Claire Smith, 33, collapsed and died while exercising at LivingWell Premier health club in Newcraighall.
Dr Shaw says: "Being very fit can aggravate an underlying tendency to thickened heart muscle, so some of the Scottish football teams screen them by an echocardiogram.
"Anybody who suffers from chest discomfort during physical activity should stop their activity and have the discomfort checked out by their family doctor."
SADLY, for many, the first indication that something is wrong is deadly. Welsh football internationalist Terry Yorath’s son Daniel had shown no outward signs of his HCM, yet he collapsed and died during a kick-around at the family home in 1994, aged just 15.
And 19-year-old Cameron Gunn collapsed and died in 1991 while playing five-a-side football.
His mother Wilma runs Scottish Heart at Risk Testing (Hart), which is currently lobbying the Scottish Parliament to have every young Scottish sportsman monitored for the defect.
Mrs Gunn, from Selkirk, says: "Screening is seen by many as the way forward.
"In Greece, they even monitor children at the age of four, before they start school and testing is the norm in many other countries.
"Routine testing would be crucial in cutting the tragic but unnecessary loss of young people in a country which has a high death rate from heart disease."
Mother-of-two Lynn Lewis, 35, of Broxburn, is also pressing for a national screening programme which she believes will save many young lives.
She was 18 when she first discovered she had heart problems and six years ago was told her restrictive cardiomyopathy - a condition which stiffens the heart muscle - meant she would need a heart transplant.
Lynn says: "When I was diagnosed, I was told this was a one in a million chance; it was one of those things. But now medical technology is changing and it’s becoming clear this is a massive problem.
"There are some who say: ‘Look at the implications a positive result from screening could have on a person’s life insurance or mortgage’. I would rather know that I have a heart defect.
"Put it this way, if I didn’t have a heart condition, I’d be the same as every other moaning person, worrying about the state of carpets and trivial things like that.
"But I got a kick up the backside and it’s made me appreciate what life is all about.
"I’ve stayed at home to look after my kids, I’m doing a university degree course and now I want to become an MSP.
"People need to realise how important their life is, because no-one knows when their life is going to end."
Additional reporting Alison Smith
Dange
rs that are all around
THE most common cause of sudden death in young adults is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, but it’s not only our hearts we have to worry about.
Sudden death can come in many different forms.
Around 600,000 people in the UK are blissfully unaware they are at risk of an aneurysm, which occurs when a weak blood vessel in the brain suddenly ruptures. Around 80 per cent of brain haemorrhages are caused by aneurysms and 50 per cent of sufferers die.
Danger, it seems, is all around. For even a seemingly innocuous blow to the chest can be deadly. There may be no superficial damage, but a severe thump can alter the rhythm of the heart, bruise it and cause serious internal injury which may lead to death.
As if that’s not worrying enough, around 30 Britons, of all ages, die or are left severely disabled every day because of a stroke.
The causes are often linked to high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, high cholesterol, heart disease and abnormalities of the clotting system.
Further risk comes from deep vein thrombosis, when blood clots in the leg’s deep veins and eventually travels into the lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism. Fatal for some 2000 Britons a year.
Alison Cox, chief executive of Cardiac Risk in the Young (Cry) says we should all be aware of the dangers, but take a common-sense approach.
She says: "These are unusual conditions. However, the main thing is to look at family history, have there been any unaccountable deaths in the past?
"There may be deaths where the family just feel it didn’t add up."
Cry holds regular clinics in Edinburgh where individuals can have heart checks for around £200. For further details, contact Cry on (01737) 363222.
