Texas House mandates EKG tests for high school athletes

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) The Texas House has preliminarily approved requiring high school athletes to undergo electrocardiogram testing for possible degenerative heart problems before participating in campus sports.

Representatives voted 86-57 Monday to make EKG testing mandatory as part of physicals taken to participate in all University Interscholastic League activities.

They did so while Scott Stephens whose son Cody was a high school football player but died in 2012 of sudden cardiac arrest just before graduating watched from the gallery.

The national nonprofit Children’s Heart Foundation says 3,600-plus Texas children born each year suffer a congenital heart defect. That predisposes them to sudden cardiac death.

Read more: http://blogs.elpasotimes.com/highschoolsports/2015/04/14/texas-house-mandates-ekg-tests-for-high-school-athletes/