Heart screening has been offered to students at the University of Cambridge after a 20-year-old undergraduate suffered a sudden cardiac arrest.

Clarissa Nicholls collapsed and died from idiopathic arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) while hiking in France in May 2023.

Miss Nichols’s friends have started Clarissa’s campaign for Cambridge Hearts and raised over £55,000 to fund heart checks via electrocardiogram (ECG) for hundreds of students.

Hilary Nicholls told the BBC that her daughter would have been “very proud”.

Miss Nicholls was studying French and Italian at Trinity Hall and was in her third year abroad as part of a four-year degree.

She was working for a publishing company in Paris and, a few days before her 21st birthday, went on a trip to the Gorges du Verdon with her flatmate.

Following Miss Nicholls’s death, her family, from Wandsworth, London, have thrown themselves into raising funds and raising awareness of heart conditions among young people. ECG screening For others with unknown problems.

Miss Nicholls had an ECG but the results were not “interpreted accurately”, her mother said.

Miss Nicholls’ friends, students Jessica Reeve and Izzy Winter, began raising money for Clarissa’s campaign for Cambridge Hearts through GoFundMe.

The aim was to raise £7,000, which would cover the cost of a day’s ECG screening for around 100 young people.

“Clarissa is lucky to have some wonderful friends,” Mrs Nicholls told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

“I’m sure he will be very proud of the legacy he left to the university, and very proud of his friends for turning this tragedy into a really positive thing.”

He said students were now being offered “Rolls-Royce” ECG tests.

Her daughter, she said, did not have the “opportunities” that students are getting now.

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