Heart to Play

Heart defects in young athletes are gaining more attention nationally and now a local hospital is hoping to detect them before it’s too late.

Reports show that among young athletes, about one in 200,000 die each year from unexpected sudden cardiac arrest.

"Unless you have those specific symptoms or signs, you can have a heart defect and don’t even know it," Pediatrician Dr. Diane LeMay.

In an effort to prevent situations like that from happening in our area, Licking Memorial Health Systems created a program called "Heart to Play" three years ago, to provide free sports pre-participation screenings and electrocardiograms to Licking County athletes.

"Heart defects in young athletes are gaining more and more attention on the national level as we are seeing the fatal effects of unrecognized heart conditions in the athletes," said Dr. LeMay

Taking an EKG is one way to detect any heart defects in an athlete.

"It allows us to see the electrical conduction of the heart, to see if there’s a problem with the rhythm of the heart or the way the top part of the heart speaks to the bottom part of the heart," said the doctor.

Over the past three years, heart defects have been discovered in five athletes in Licking County.

14-year-old Kelly Clapper is one of those athletes. Last spring, during an EKG, doctors learned that she had Wolff-Parkinson White Syndrome, a condition that creates dangerous heart rhythms and can even lead to sudden death during physical exertion.

"Scared. I wasn’t really feeling, I wasn’t really believing them when they told me and I didn’t want it to be me," said Kelly Clapper.

Her father, Chris, said it was a complete shock, "I mean cause Kelly’s been pretty active and we never really noticed anything or she hadn’t complained of anything, so it was a big surprise."

Kelly had to undergo an eight-hour surgery and was able to fully recover with no complications.

Doctors believe by performing these kinds of tests, they are able to save lives.