BOY’S HEART BEATS 301 TIMES A MINUTE

Docs slow one of fastest ever rates

A BOY of 10 had surgery after his heart began to beat at one of the fastest rates ever recorded.

Jack Searle’s reading of 301 beats per minute was so high doctors doublechecked it twice with different machines.

His mum Laura Searle, 37, herself an NHS worker, said: “Doctors couldn’t believe he’d walked in with such a heart rate. His whole chest was moving you could see his heart pumping out of it.

“They thought their machines were broken – the nurse said, ‘That can’t be and got another machine.” Jack was put in intensive care and found to have unusual electrical activity.

The A&E doctors at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge gave him betablockers to slow his heart and massaged the carotid artery in his neck.

Mum-of-two Laura, of Bar Hill, Cambs, added: “There were so many doctors working on him. Jack was grey.”

The ordeal began when Jack was sent home from school in January after saying he felt unwell.

Dad Charles, 36, saw his son’s heart pumping so fast the beats could be seen through his jumper.

A typical resting heart rate for a 10-year-old ranges from between 60 to 100 beats per minute.

Jack was diagright’ nosed with supraventricular tachycardia, a condition caused by an extra pathway in the heart. Surgeons at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital operated in June and he is now back playing football. Brother Harry, eight, has raised £3,000 for the hospitals that saved his brother’s life.

Jack Searle

Hospital website. Most episodes of SVT only last for a few minutes and do not need urgent treatment.

However, if an episode lasts several hours the patient may need medication to control their blood pressure, or a defibrillator to “shock’ the heart into a normal rhythm.