Student Loses Limbs After Mistaking Meningitis for ‘Common Flu’

A university student from Nottinghamshire lost both her legs and the fingers on her left hand after an illness she suspected to be the common flu turned out to be a rare form of meningitis.

Charlotte Hannibal is sharing her story to raise awareness of bacterial meningitis.

According to The Independent, teenagers are the second biggest group at risk of contracting the disease after toddlers and babies. 19 year old Charlotte contracted meningococcal group W meningitis and septicaemia in February 2015. Charlotte has been spending a week with her family but when she returned to university she began feeling cold and had a sore throat. Her parents collected her on Tuesday but by that night, her health had quickly deteriorated. She was vomiting and by the next day, she was almost unable to walk. “After an hour of waiting I was seen by a doctor, who after a five-minute discussion sent me straight through to A&E,” Charlotte told Meningitis Now. “By 6:30 pm I had suffered from complete organ failure and had only just developed a slight rash on my eyelids.” Charlotte was placed in an induced coma while her body fought the disease for 17 days. A high count of white blood cells initially led doctors to believe she was suffering from leukemia. It was two weeks before the correctly identified meningococcal septicemia. Charlotte woke with little memory of the incident. “I was left with severe memory loss so was unable to remember being ill at all. My hearing was also damaged and, at this stage, I was unable to move anything but my eyes and mouth. “But it was my first step towards recovery,” she said. Charlotte spent a total of 27 days in intensive care. She had both legs amputated below the knee and lost all the fingers on her left hand due to the illness. She returned home mid June. “Due to severe scarring, my kidneys no longer work at the necessary rate, so I will be on dialysis every night until a kidney transplant can be achieved. While I still have to attend multiple rehabilitation appointments, and spend four days a week at the hospital, I’m very grateful to be alive,” she told the charity. image via Facebook.