This picture of tragic Charlotte Wright, taken moments before she died, is to be used for a national campaign calling on the Government to provide heart screening for young people.
Charlotte died at just eight years old of sudden heart failure as she scaled a 20ft high tree on a school adventure holiday in Hindhead in May 2002.
At an inquest the coroner heard that Charlotte, a pupil at Halfway Houses Primary School, was a fit and healthy young girl who had no history of problems.
Now her mum, Karen Williams, has jointed up the charity CRY, founded in May 1995 to raise awareness of Cardiac Risk in the Young.
“Every week eight people die of sudden heart failure,” she said.
“Charlotte didn’t die of a heart attack or have a heart defect.
“This sudden heart failure exists, and if this campaign saves lives, then something good will have come out of it.”
Charlotte’s face will be featured on a postcard along with seven other young people from the south east who also suddenly died.
On the back of the postcard will be the address of Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Derek Wyatt.
Mrs Williams will have 500 postcards to give to friends and family to send to Mr Wyatt urging him to support CRY’s campaign.
“I just want to stop people going through what I’ve been through,” said Mrs Williams.
“One minute I’ve got a normal healthy daughter and a normal life and the next my world has been turned upside down. One simple test could have avoided all this.”
Screening identifies most of the conditions that are genetic and can kill swiftly.
If a person is found to have a condition it is treatable through medicine or increasingly through successful implantation of internal cardiac defibrillators.
“We just need as many people as possible to send the postcards, we need to stop this happening to other people.”
