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Relatives and friends outside the inquest. From left: Daniel’s uncle, Noel Wynter; friend Basem Nashat; mother Velma Wynter; friend Muneer Rabah |
Teenager who died on pitch had no obvious heart defect
Family to be screened as inquest hears ECG test is needed to spot problem
CLOSE relatives of a teenager who collapsed and died on a football pitch have been advised to have heart screening.
Daniel Noel, 18, died while playing in the annual Camden Unity Cup in Whitfield Street, Bloomsbury, falling to the ground only moments after scoring a winning goal.
A coroner’s inquest revealed on Tuesday morning how Daniel had no obvious sign of heart defects but might have succumbed to a “sudden abnormal rhythm” during the match in July.
Experts said potential problems were only likely to have been picked up by electrocardiogram (ECG) testing.
Daniel’s uncle, Noel Wynter, said after the inquest: “We’ve been told it happens more to athletic young people but the only way you can tell is through ECGs.
“It may be expensive but maybe they should give teenagers who do sports regularly ECGs to make sure everything is all right.”
Professional footballers have been known to collapse and in some cases die during matches due to unforeseen heart problems.
Mr Wynter added: “It sounds bad but at least if somebody gets stabbed then you know why and how they died, and if they are ill then you can understand what’s happened.
“But with this: there aren’t any answers. The court hasn’t told us anything.”
Daniel’s mother, Velma Wynter, said of her son’s death: “It will live with me forever. We loved him and we miss him.”
His family have been overwhelmed by the number of well-wishers who have sent messages of condolences. More than 3,000 friends attended his funeral. Former classmates from Pimlico School are writing a tribute song in Daniel’s honour and are preparing to record it in a studio.
His favourite football club, Manchester United, donated a shirt for a shrine of tributes which built up at the Warren football pitches where he died.
The St Pancras inquest heard how Daniel, a business course student, had just scored a winning goal for London Tigers when in the middle of his celebrations he fell to the ground.
Only moments earlier he had been snapped with his team-mates in a line-up pose by a New Journal photographer covering the matches.
A friend phoned Ms Wynter to tell her that he was “having a fit”. Ms Wynter said: “I said that Daniel didn’t have fits and that’s when I knew something was terribly wrong.”
A junior doctor who happened to be watching the game and a police officer treated him on the pitch before an ambulance took him to University College Hospital in Bloomsbury, where he was pronounced dead.
Ms Wynter, a former secretary who now looks after her five other children, told the inquest how she had one last conversation with Daniel on the day he died.
“He was just asking: ‘Where are my football socks?’ It was a normal conversation and he went out to play football. And that was it.”
Dr Sian Hughes, a cardiac expert at UCH, told the inquest that Daniel’s heart was “not an abnormal size”.
All she could find in an autopsy was a “small wedge” of scar which would not be picked up in standard tests.
She said it would be “prudent” to “recommend screening for first-degree relatives to exclude the presence of an abnormal heart.”
Verdict: natural causes.
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