THE wife of tragic rugby star Danny Jones who died from a cardiac arrest during a match hopes new treatments can be found to help others who might suffer from the same condition.
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| zzie Jones has called for accelerated research in to the condition that killed her husband |
Danny Jones died aged 29 while playing rugby league for Keighley Cougars in May last year.
The Welsh international collapsed after being replaced during a match.
He was treated at the ground before being taken to the Royal Free Hospital, where he later died after suffering cardiac arrest.
His brave wife Lizzie Jones said she has been left devastated by his death, which was caused by a previously undetected, hereditary heart condition.
She is now backing a British Heart Foundation (BHF) campaign urging for accelerated research into these conditions and genetic testing for families known to be at risk.
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| Lizzie has said it'll be "hard" to raise the twins without Danny |
Mrs Jones, mother of one-year-old twins Bobby and Phoebe, who is also a professional singer, said: “I knew I was going to marry Danny from the first time we went out. Losing him that day devastated our family.
“It just didn’t occur to me that a seemingly fit and healthy athlete like Danny could ever be struck down with a heart condition. It goes to show that it can happen to anyone.
“Raising our twins without Danny is hard. 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 father-of-two was described as "the life and soul in the dressing room, a natural leader, a true professional and irreplaceable" in a club statement.
The BHF are determined to raise awareness about the potentially undiagnosed heart conditions plaguing thousands of Britons - including the young, fit and healthy.
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| Lizzie plans to test twins, Phoebe and Bobby, when they're older |
Since 2016, the Rugby Football League (RFL) cardiac screening is mandatory for Rugby League players in the Championship and League 1.
Mrs Jones wants amateur athletes to undergo the same testing.
An inherited heart condition can span generations: someone living with certain types of inherited heart condition has a 50:50 chance of passing it onto their children.
These genetic faults can lead to heart muscle diseases called cardiomyopathies, heart rhythm disorders and familial hypercholesterolemia, a condition which causes abnormally high cholesterol that can lead to a heart attack at a young age.
The most common cause of sudden unexpected death in childhood and in young athletes is a condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).
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| BHF and Mrs Jones have called for accelerated research in to inherited heart conditions |
It is estimated that around 120,000 people are living with HCM in the UK - shockingly, most remain undiagnosed.
However, research led by BHF Professor Mathias Gautel from King’s College London, is helping to discover how changes in genes can lead to faulty heart proteins that can cause the condition.
Professor Gautel and his team are using state-of-the-art technologies to discover how changes to specialised proteins which create the heart’s powerful contractions can cause the heart to fail.
He said: “We’ve already made great progress into understanding how heart muscle proteins work to help the heart to beat. By continuing our research looking at exactly what goes wrong with these proteins, some of which are yet poorly understood, we hope to be able to design new ways to treat people with this often life-threatening disease.”
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