• By ELLYN COUVILLION
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Feb 10, 2010 - Page: 1D

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Jump Start Your Heart, a nonprofit organization, screened Southern University athletes and more than 200 high school athletes last year for a form of heart disease that can cause sudden death.

The athletes were healthy, as hoped for, said Danielle Kelley, executive director and co-founder of Jump Start Your Heart.

But if a screening ever reveals that an athlete has the heart condition, “You’ve saved a life,” Kelley said.

Kelley and her husband, Dr. Steven Kelley, an interventional cardiologist, formed Jump Start Your Heart in the summer following the Feb. 18, 2008, death of local high school basketball standout Shannon Veal, a junior at Glen Oaks High School.

Veal collapsed during a game on her high school’s court. It was later learned that she died of undetected heart disease, an enlarged heart.

Danielle Kelley’s son, Kaylin Johnson, and Shannon had played BREC basketball together during middle school, Danielle said.

“She was a fabulous player, a fabulous student,” she said of Shannon. “She was an all-around wonderful child and a wonderful athlete.”

Danielle Kelley, who previously worked as a family nurse practitioner, said that she and her husband, with their medical backgrounds, felt called to create the organization.

“Our mission is to decrease the incidence of sudden cardiac death in student athletes,” she said.

On Saturday, Jump Start Your Heart will hold its second fundraising Valentine’s Gala, with cocktails, dinner and dancing from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., at the Old State Capitol.

Funds raised will be used to purchase additional heart-screening equipment.

High school athletes are required by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association to get physical checkups before they compete in school sports, Danielle Kelley said.

The heart screenings offered by Jump Start Your Heart are not required and don’t replace the required checkups, but enhance them, she said.