![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/claudia-christie-3-021026-jpg.webp\")
Claudia Christie recovers from meningococcal meningitis and sepsis. Photo: Supplied <\/p>\nA matter of minutes \u2014\u00a0that was all Claudia Christie had left before\u00a0meningococcal meningitis and sepsis would have killed her.<\/p>\n
It was during a\u00a0mock year 12 NCEA exam in 2022, that the then 16-year-old\u00a0first\u00a0 felt\u00a0 a little feverish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of had like chills through my body and I just thought, \u2018oh no, I\u2019m getting a bad cold.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
When she got home, she\u00a0took\u00a0some paracetamol\u00a0and tried to rest, but nothing helped.<\/p>\n
Over the next 12 hours, her condition deteriorated.<\/p>\n
\u201cA\u00a0headache started\u00a0and then I started\u00a0vomiting, and the headache just got worse and worse\u00a0until after a few hours, it was so bad that\u00a0I was screaming at my mum.<\/p>\n
\u201cI became sensitive to light,\u00a0I was\u00a0quite disorientated\u00a0and\u00a0I had this stiff neck.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following that, her\u00a0whole body started hurting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was\u00a0like excruciatingly bad, which would have been the sepsis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t move myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was at that point that her parents\u00a0became\u00a0so concerned,\u00a0 they\u00a0 took her to Dunedin Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe A&E doctors told\u00a0my dad later that\u00a0at the rate my vitals were dropping, I was minutes away from not making it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how close it was.<\/p>\n
\u201cHearing that was extremely\u00a0sobering \u2014\u00a0like, talking about it, it doesn\u2019t feel real.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was immediately given antibiotics and put in an induced\u00a0coma for about 36 hours.<\/p>\n
After her condition had stabilised and she regained consciousness, she discovered her eyesight and hearing had been badly affected.<\/p>\n
Claudia Christie recovers from meningococcal meningitis and sepsis. Photo: Supplied <\/p>\n
Fortunately, her hearing and sight have\u00a0recovered, but she still suffers with\u00a0extreme health anxiety and\u00a0PTSD.<\/p>\n
Despite the ordeal, she believed she was \u201cone of the lucky ones\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recovery was long and hard, and I thought I was going to have long-term complications, but I\u2019ve been so lucky with how I\u2019ve bounced back.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many others who have had meningococcal meningitis and sepsis, have ongoing complications.\u201d<\/p>\n
She knew other people who had had the disease, who had lost limbs, had organ failure and had to have organ transplants.<\/p>\n
It was not until she regained consciousness in hospital that her doctors told her she had\u00a0meningococcal meningitis and sepsis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018I\u2019ve never heard of it\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of my friends knew what it was\u00a0either.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something we just never talked about or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
So now the University of Otago third-year marketing,\u00a0management and human resources\u00a0student takes time out of her busy study schedule to share her experience with Dunedin\u2019s secondary school students.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been going around the high schools and doing wee talks and presentations about what it is\u00a0and encouraging\u00a0them to get vaccinated, because it\u2019s just not spoken about around high schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hoped that by telling her story\u00a0and highlighting World Meningitis Day on Monday, it might\u00a0inspire parents to have their children\u00a0vaccinated against meningococcal disease.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Awareness was crucial, particularly knowing the signs and symptoms of meningitis was so important, she said.<\/p>\n
Had she\u00a0known the symptoms when she was 16, she believed she would\u00a0have been more assertive about getting treatment earlier.<\/p>\n
The Meningitis Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand said the disease\u00a0was one of the country\u2019s deadliest vaccine-preventable diseases.<\/p>\n
Between 2021 and 2025, New Zealand recorded 240 cases of meningococcal disease, and 12 deaths.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Local research suggests more than one in five survivors are left with permanent disabilities, including deafness, brain damage and limb amputations.<\/p>\n
As part of\u00a0World Meningitis Day,\u00a0landmark buildings across Otago and Southland will be lit up with purple lights in remembrance of those who have died from the disease.<\/p>\n
The landmarks include the\u00a0Oamaru Opera House, Dunedin\u2019s\u00a0Toit\u016b Otago Settlers Museum and Forsyth Barr Stadium, and Invercargill\u2019s\u00a0HW Richardson Group Tower and\u00a0Queens Park\u2019s\u00a0Feldwick Gates.<\/p>\n
Symptoms of meningococcal meningitis and sepsis can include:<\/p>\n
Stiff, sore neck
\n Aching joints
\n Sensitivity to light
\n Severe headache
\n Drowsiness and confusion
\n Feverish, sometimes with cold hands and feet
\n Vomiting
\n Convulsions or seizures <\/p>\n
john.lewis@odt.co.nz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A matter of minutes \u2014\u00a0that was all Claudia Christie had left before\u00a0meningococcal meningitis and sepsis would have killed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-618960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}