Top teenage kayaker beats heart scare

An athlete screening programme has potentially saved the life of a promising Kiwi kayaker.

Eighteen months ago, Alicia Hoskin, now 18, was in the middle of a training session, two weeks out from the Junior World Championships, when a phone call from her father to her coach changed the young athlete’s focus from speed to survival.

Hoskin, originally from the Poverty Bay region, had undergone an ECG two weeks earlier as part of an emerging athlete development programme.

It’s a move she now credits for saving her life. The young paddler had forgotten about the ECG until the doctor called her father.

‘‘My coach just looked at me and goes, ‘um, so I’ve had a call from your dad, I think you need to get off the water now and go and talk to him – something’s up’,’’ Hoskin told TVNZ.

‘‘He said ‘we’ve had the results come back from your cardiac testing and there’s what we call Wolf Parkinson White syndrome so there’s an extra electrical pathway in your heart.’’’

Wolf Parkinson White (WPW) can lead to heart failure and periods of rapid heart rate.

The Junior World Championship plans were put on the backburner as Hoskin went to hospital for treatment.

‘‘If it hadn’t been picked up worst case scenario it could have been fatal, so that was the main reason why I was held back,’’ Hoskin told TVNZ.

Hoskin, who is now part of the national elite programme in Auckland, made it to the Junior World Championships a year later where she won two B-finals.

‘‘Just before I went home for Christmas I got the all clear from the cardiologist which was very good news for my family and I, so my mum especially and dad was crying.’’