free electrocardiogram screenings<\/a> to kids and young adults between the ages of 10 and 22. The screenings were hosted by the nonprofit Who We Play For, an organization dedicated to preventing sudden cardiac arrest in young athletes.<\/p>\nSudden cardiac arrest remains the leading cause of death among student athletes.<\/p>\n
Families lined the halls throughout the morning for the quick, non-invasive test known as an EKG \u2014 a screening that can detect underlying heart conditions that often show no warning signs.<\/p>\n
Angelo Santos brought his two sons, both of whom play basketball in Jacksonville, for peace of mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a good thing to detect the EKG for the heart, so that they know we can screen potential problems, especially nowadays when younger athletes just collapse on the field or on the court,\u201d Santos told First Coast News.<\/p>\n
Health experts estimate that one in 300 young people has a detectable heart condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile it is relatively uncommon for a student athlete to have sudden cardiac arrest, that still is the leading cause for sudden death,\u201d said Dr. Rajesh Shenoy, a pediatric cardiologist.<\/p>\n
Organizers of the event said the goal is to make heart screenings as routine as sports physicals.<\/p>\n
Robert R. Sefcik, executive director of the Jacksonville Sports Medicine Program, said events like this are about identifying the rare, but serious cases before tragedy strikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to catch the needle in the haystack,\u201d Sefcik said. \u201cWe know that most kids are perfectly safe and perfectly healthy, but every now and then we will catch somebody with a cardiac abnormality that needs additional follow-up. Preparing kids for playing high school sports and being safe out on the athletic field, that\u2019s what we\u2019re all about today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers said they plan to host more screening events throughout the year. Families can visit whoweplayfor.org for future dates and registration information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Families focused on their child’s heart health at a free screening event aimed at preventing sudden cardiac arrest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-155752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}