By Pamela McGowan

Published at 13:54, Friday, 14 September 2012

THE mum of a Carlisle schoolgirl who died after being struck down by meningitis is backing a campaign to raise awareness of its symptoms.

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Sally Glendinning – a pupil at the city’s Richard Rose Central Academy –was just 17 when she lost her life to the illness in January 2011.

Her mum Anne is now urging others in the community to Be MeningitisWise as part of Meningitis Awareness Week, which starts Monday.

By encouraging people to learn the symptoms and act fast, she believes it will save lives and prevent other families from similar tragedies.

“Our daughter Sally was a fit healthy young girl with a bubbly personality full of fun and loved life,” she said.

“She took ill with a sore throat and fever which the out-of-hours doctor diagnosed as flu. The next evening Sally had been sick, had an awful bad head and didn’t like the light. She was talking gibberish, had a completely blank expression and was thrashing about.

“She was taken to Cumberland Infirmary where they worked all night to try to save her life but couldn’t work a miracle. Sally lost her fight for life aged 17. We love and miss her so very much.”

According to the Meningitis Research Foundation (MRF), meningitis and septicaemia affect around 3,600 people in the UK and Ireland annually. The deadly diseases can strike anyone without warning, killing one in 10 and leaving a quarter of survivors with life-altering after-effects ranging from deafness and brain damage to limbs loss. For a list of symptoms visit www.meningitis.org or download the free iPhone App from www.bit.ly/MRFapp.

Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk