LCCC to Support SADS Awareness Week

Leicestershire CCC is again helping to support local heart charity, the Joe Humphries Memorial Trust (JHMT), during SADS Awareness Week (3-9 October).

The annual awareness week aims to remind and educate healthcare professionals, sports-related professionals, as well as parents and carers of young people about the dangers of undiagnosed heart conditions like sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS).

JHMT created the week following the tragic sudden death of teenager Joe Humphries, who died from SADS while out on a training jog near his Rothley home in October 2012. Every week in the UK, 12 young people (12-35 years old) die due to undiagnosed genetic heart conditions like SADS.

LCCC have been working with the charity since 2016, helping to facilitate the installation of automated external defibrillators (AED) across cricket clubs in the county.

AEDs, commonly known as defibrillators, analyse the heart and deliver an electric shock to victims of cardiac arrest to revive the heart’s rhythm to normal.

With the combined help of the Club, JHMT and the Leicestershire & Rutland Cricket League, all LRCL Premier League clubs now have access to an onsite or community AED, with the programme further growing to reach over 50% of clubs at all levels across the county.

The Trust’s in-house trainers then provide sessions for players, coaches and volunteers to learn how to use an AED and provide effective CPR.

As well as helping clubs and the community become more heart-safe, LCCC has also increased its own safety measures, with seven AED’s now onsite at Uptonsteel County Ground.

The Club has previously held cardiac arrest awareness days in conjunction with JHMT, helping to educate supporters, staff members and local school children, who received hands-on training with the use of CPR manikins and training defibrillators.

Andy Hibberd, Senior Club Network Officer at LCCC, said: “It is brilliant to support JHMT and their work once again during an important week.
“We are delighted to have fulfilled our original ambition of making our local Premier League clubs heart-safe, but we are now eager to grow the project to cover every club in Leicestershire, while raising the profile of the collaboration between LCCC and JHMT.

As well as providing free CPR and defibrillator training, the JHMT works hard to raise awareness of sudden heart deaths, helps to provide community defibrillators and runs ‘Inspire’, a local grants scheme for inspirational young people aged between 13-21 years old.

To read more about ‘Inspire’, please click HERE, and to find more information about the JHMT and its work, please visit HERE.