“Considering how fit I was and what I did for a living, no-one suspected anything serious.”

As Bradford Bulls centre, accustomed to playing fast-paced Super League rugby, Adrian Purtell was the last person anyone would imagine suffering a heart attack.

But four years ago, after a game against Leeds Rhinos, that is what happened, shaking his world and leaving him wondering whether he would ever again play the sport he loved.

The skills and expertise of Bulls’ medics and hospital doctors saw him work his way back to fitness and now the team captain is inspiring others as a healthy heart ambassador, supporting the Yorkshire-based national charity Heart Research UK.

The incident came as a shock to Adrian, who believed himself fully fit.

“I had played a full game of rugby league for 80 minutes,” he recalls. “It was a warm day. I came off, had a shower and went for something to eat.”

It was then that he began to feel unwell. “I deteriorated slowly. We got on the team bus to return to Leeds and I to begin with I experienced what felt like severe heartburn, then I started to bring up bile from my stomach. I felt really drained and had no energy.

“As time went on, there was more and more pressure on my chest.”

To begin with, it was thought that Adrian may be suffering from heat stroke or severe dehydration. “I had had a tough game,” he says,

“Considering how fit I was and what I did for a living, no-one suspected anything more serious.”

But on the way home, the team doctor and physiotherapist began to change their minds. The club doctor Donald Young advised that he should be taken immediately to hospital.

He was initially taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary before being transferred to Leeds General Infirmary, where an angioplasty - a surgical procedure to widen narrowed or obstructed arteries or veins - was performed and a stent inserted.

“After that I felt fairly normal again,” he recalls. Adrian’s parents had flown over from their home town of Albury in New South Wales, to be with him.

“There were no signs at all, I felt fit and healthy. It shows you don’t know what is going on inside.”

Incidents of undetected cardiac problems in young sportsmen and women are not uncommon.

Last year Keighley Cougars and Welsh international rugby league player Danny Jones, 29, was substituted after feeling unwell during a game. Soon after he had a heart attack, from which he later died. A post-mortem revealed that he had undetected, hereditary heart disease.

In 2009 Wakefield Trinity Wildcats rugby league forward Leon Walker, 20, fell ill during a reserve game. It was later discovered that he had an undiagnosed heart defect and a coroner ruled that he died from natural causes. Six months earlier Wakefield’s Adam Watene, 31, died from a suspected heart attack after collapsing during training.

It is now mandatory for England rugby union and Premiership rugby union clubs as well as rugby league and super league clubs to carry out cardiac screening.

The national charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) raises awareness of potentially life-threatening cardiac abnormalities in young people and promotes screening. As well as rugby, it carries out screening for sports including tennis, football and cricket.

Adrian was out of action for almost a year, during which he was monitored by cardiologists, before resuming his career in an emotional return against Hull Kingston Rovers.

“The whole episode shook me and I was at my lowest when I didn’t know whether I would ever again play the sport I love,” he says. “I didn’t think my lifestyle was unhealthy – on the contrary - as a fit athlete with all the physical training and healthy eating regime which we have to follow I never thought such a thing could happen to me.

Since his heart attack Adrian looks more closely at his diet. “One of the things I am aware of is to eat more fish, particularly omega 3-rich oily fish which I have once a week - it was recommended by my cardiologist.”

He backs Seafish’s heart health campaign #Superfishoil, raising awareness of the benefits of omega 3.

Adrian is thrilled to be helping Heart Research UK. This year he and two team mates swam the length of the English Channel in their local pool in Leeds, raising almost £1,000 to help hearts locally.

Heart Research UK funds ground-breaking medical research - over the past ten years the charity has funded more than £10.2 million on medical research in hospitals and universities across the UK as well as £1.7 million on community-based lifestyle projects that help people live healthier, happier lives.

“Anything I can go to help stop something like this happening to someone else is a good thing.”

*For more information visit heartresearch.org.uk; @heartresearchuk; #Superfishoil