A student's "freshers' flu" turned out to be deadly meningitis - and she had both legs amputated to save her life.
Ketia Moponda, 19, had arrived at university just eight days before being struck down with what she initially thought was freshers' flu - a minor cough that new students commonly develop during their opening weeks.
Her recollection remains foggy due to her condition, but the marketing and advertising student admitted to mates she was feeling dreadful.
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When relatives and friends were unable to contact her the following day, concerned security personnel and a fellow student at De Montfort University in Leicester gained access to her room and discovered her unconscious.
She was diagnosed with meningococcal septicaemia, which triggered bacterial meningitis, leading to sepsis, and she underwent amputations to all ten fingers and both legs in January 2025, just over a week after starting at university.
Meningococcal septicaemia - a fatal blood poisoning condition - can spread between individuals through coughing and sneezing.
Ketia, from Wolverhampton is now speaking publicly to alert other students beginning university this month.
"I have no memory of any of this but I'm lucky to be alive," she said.
"When I got to hospital my blood oxygen level was at 1%.
"The blood wasn't circulating around my body and my skin was colourless.
"My feet were green and swollen.
"My organs were failing, and doctors told my family that if I woke at all I'd likely be brain dead."
Ketia's ordeal began with a simple cough on 25 September 2024.
Feeling unusually tired after eating pizza for dinner, she took some medicine but woke up the next day feeling even worse.
By lunchtime, she called her cousin, expressing that she felt faint and they agreed to check in again the next morning.
However, by 8pm, she rang her best mate, confessing that she felt like she was "going to die".
When she failed to contact her cousin the following day, her friend raised the alarm at the university.
An ambulance rushed Ketia to the Intensive Care Unit at Leicester Royal Infirmary hospital, with her mum and sister being blue-lighted to join her by the police.
Ketia was placed into a coma, from which she woke two days later.
"I couldn't see or speak and it was a whole week before I started speaking," she revealed.
"Most of the time I didn't know where I was."
The skin on Ketia's fingers and feet began to shrivel, swell and cause pain due to poor blood circulation.
Two weeks later, she contracted a flesh-eating bug on her buttocks.
Doctors performed a skin graft from her thighs to her bum.
In December, Ketia was moved to Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, where she underwent amputations of all her fingers and thumbs, as well as both her legs just below the knee, on 7 January 2025.
"Basically my legs had died because of a lack of blood going to them," she explained.
"I felt like my whole life had just begun and now I had to start all over again differently."
Ketia, who previously visited the gym daily and harboured dreams of a modelling career, was discharged from hospital on February 24.
She received prosthetic lower legs in May and began attending a rehabilitation centre in Wolverhampton.
Ketia remains on a waiting list to discover whether she'll also receive prosthetic fingers.
Whilst it typically requires a year to relearn walking, the determined young woman is already strolling through parks without assistance.
She intends to return to running at the gym once able and remains resolute about pursuing her modelling ambitions.
She said: "They don't know how I got the illness - it's heartbreaking.
"I loved being active and I will be again.
"At first I thought I'd give up on modelling but I won't.
"I am unapologetically me and I want to help others to feel confident about who they are and how they look.
"I'm very headstrong and I plan to break all the barriers of disability."