A Northern Irish pharmacist raised £1,560 for the British Heart Foundation (BHF) NI in memory of her dad who passed away in May.

Kirby Mercer, from Portadown, County Armagh, ran the Antrim Coast Half Marathon on August 25 to raise money for a “cause close to my heart”.

She ran “in memory of my dad, Gary, who passed away in May due to ischaemia of the bowel having previously suffered a heart attack in 2015 and a stroke in 2016”, Mercer said on her fundraising page.

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BHF say “ischaemic bowel is a rare circulatory condition” and occurs “when the arteries supplying the bowel are affected” and “the flow of blood to the area is reduced”.

Most affected people are those over 50, and it’s more common in women as around “5-6,000 hospital admissions and 3,000 deaths” happen in the UK each year.

Mercer, 28, wants to “raise awareness” as it “can have fatal consequences when undetected by medical professionals as in my dad's case”.

Mercer said after her dad’s heart attack and stroke years ago, he “built his confidence back up and had been able to maintain a relatively normal lifestyle”.

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But after feeling pains similar to his heart attack, he went to A&E and was given painkillers and antibiotics before being discharged as “the medical staff believed it was a stomach bug”.

Mercer said “he was in unbearable pain and very uncomfortable during the following 36 hours” before he passed away on the morning of May 8 aged 63.

Mercer decided to raise money through running as her dad “was always so supportive of me and encouraged me in all my sports activities”.