[alexkus]

Those in the UK (or soccer fans in general) will be more aware of this due to incidents involving Marc-Vivien Foé who collapsed and died during a game, and more recently Fabrice Muamba who survived a cardiac arrest (his heart had stopped for over an hour but was receiving CPR[1] during this time).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc-Vivien_Fo%C3%A9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Muamba

After the Foé incident there was a lot of promotion of the Cardiac Risk in the Young charity in the UK http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/ who do ECG and Echocardiogram screening for those between 14 and 35 for a donation to the charity.

I got myself tested a couple of years in a row (until I turned 36!) as I was doing a lot of long distance (>200 miles a day for multiple days) cycling and my HRM showed me that I've got an atypical heart (resting heart rate down to ~40bpm at my fittest but I could regularly see >200bpm on my HRM whilst playing 5-a-side and I could average ~185bpm for an hour without feeling uncomfortable at all). A chat with the cardiologist after the scan(s) put any fears at bay, whilst mildly unusual there's nothing fundamentally wrong with my heart, if anything it's just a little smaller than average (hence the high HRmax).

Thoroughly recommended and you won't be wasting their time as you'll be helping support the charity by donating.

1. From, among other medical staff, a consultant cardiologist who just happened to be at the game, the same cardiologist later treated him throughout his stay at hospital.