Simon Morris, a 55-year-old TV producer from Cardiff, believes a heart screening he booked with his daughter saved his life after it revealed he had suffered a "silent heart attack".
Simon felt well and had no concerns about his health when he took his 16-year-old daughter Beca to a free Calon Hearts screening for young people aged up to 26 at The Village Hotel in Whitchurch. At the last minute, he decided to pay £300 to have his own heart checked at the same time.
"I thought the cost was what I'd spend on my car. It turned out to be the best £300 I ever spent," he said.
Silent heart attack discovered
During the screening, cardiologist Dr Omar Aldalati told the shocked father of three that he needed to go straight to hospital and helped arrange a bed for him on the cardiac unit. A few days later, Simon learned that he had suffered a "silent heart attack" and needed an angioplasty, a procedure to open up narrowed or blocked arteries supplying blood to the heart.
"If it wasn't for the screening with Calon Hearts, I don't think I would be here today," he said. "I just didn't think it would happen to me. You just never know."
After "a fairly rock n' roll time" in his twenties, Simon said he had been a relatively fit adult. He was running about once a week and had hiked up Pen y Fan and the Garth at the time he was tested in October 2025. He wasn't overweight and had no health concerns.
Coming to terms with the diagnosis
Coming to terms with the news was hard at first, he admits. "I was in disbelief. You think 'oh my God my life is over' and panic. But I was hugely relieved I'd found out."
"These sorts of heart attacks are usually precursors. The heart attack was caused by a clot in the main artery (of the heart) and that was not going to go away on its own." By discovering the clot, doctors were able to "blow it away" during the angioplasty procedure after Simon's angiogram.
Simon was then put on the unit's 12 cardiac rehabilitation programme, which involved using a treadmill. Three months after the scare, he was back at work. He said he's grateful for the support of work colleagues, wife Amy, daughter Rebecca, now 17, and their son Tomos, 15.
Fundraising for Calon Hearts
Simon has just hiked up Yr Wyddfa, Wales' highest peak, to raise nearly £10,000 for Calon Hearts, 10 times his initial target of £1,000. When Calon Hearts runs free screenings for people aged 15 to 26, it also offers older people the same check for £300 and hopes to extend its free screenings to older people.
"I wanted to give something back to the charity that had potentially saved my life, and if I was going to do something, it felt appropriate to take on something as big as Yr Wyddfa," he said. Accompanied by friends Mark Dineen and Dyfed Williams, Simon reached the summit feeling grateful for the help he's had in the last year.
"A huge thank you to every single person that's donated. I know that Calon Hearts can screen hundreds more hearts with that amount of money," he said.
Almost a year after the screening, Simon says he's feeling probably more fit and more aware of his body. Although he hadn't realised he'd had a heart attack, he said that looking back, what he thought was indigestion, tummy ache and stress in the summer of 2025 may in fact have been something far more sinister. He hopes his story will encourage others not to assume that because they feel well, everything must be fine.
