As Big Ben struck noon outside the Houses of Parliament the Hunter family from Haslemere were joined by MPs at the launch of new charity CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young).
CRY has been launched to create awareness of a condition that kills young people under 35 and to get more nationwide screening for those at risk.
New statistics show the number of young people who lose their lives from sudden cardiac death now stands at 12 every week – a 50% rise on previous estimates.
Sadly the Hunter family became one of those statistics when Stephanie lost her son, Sebastian, aged only 15 from sudden cardiac death in 2004. She had lost her first husband to the condition 11 years earlier.
At the moving ceremony CRY unveiled a poster-sized version of a new postcard for the charity.
The symbolic postcard (which was first launched in 2004 to promote the fact that eight young deaths were, at the time, estimated every week) features the photos of 12 young people from London and the South East who lost their lives suddenly to previously undetected heart conditions.
CRY says it is now widely accepted that screening saves lives, and the charity is committed to encouraging greater access to cardiac testing for all groups and people (but especially those involved in sport at grass-roots level) to detect conditions that might otherwise go undiagnosed.
The charity's chief executive and founder, Alison Cox MBE, said: "We feel as we head towards 2012 it is time to 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.
"These 12 faces are just a snapshot of the problem and we need to keep up the pressure and engage support from as many MPs as possible to ensure we can prevent other families experiencing similar tragedies."
A giant whiteboard was later unveiled by Olympian James Cracknell at a Parliamentary reception, and will act as a high-profile symbol for the charity until 2012.
The life sized 'petition' has been signed by a number of leading sports personalities, including Sir Steve Redgrave, Paula Radcliffe, Sir Ian Botham, Tim Henman and Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff.
