A HEARTBROKEN mum is urging students to get a free meningitis vaccine after her daughter died from the illness.

Kym Lockett, 49, from Halifax is sharing her first-hand experience of meningitis and septicaemia during national Meningitis Awareness Week.

Mrs Lockett’s daughter Penny was sent home from school in October 2015 with what seemed like a regular sickness and diarrhoea bug.

Penny was ill throughout the night, but her mum could not find a rash, and when she phoned the doctor she was reassured giving her paracetamol to lower her temperature was the right way to treat the symptoms.

Mrs Lockett said: “Penny had a bath but when she got out she slumped on the floor. I sat her up and she had the tiniest absence which I recognised was a small seizure. This really bothered me and I phoned 111.

“While I was on the phone Penny’s breathing became shallow and she stopped responding to me. The operator sent an ambulance and we were taken to hospital. Both the paramedics and the doctors in hospital asked lots of questions like, had she taken anything, what had she eaten They were working hard to try to eliminate lots of things but it wasn’t clear what was wrong and nothing they did seemed to make any difference. She was transferred to intensive care but the doctors explained to me and my husband that things weren’t getting any better.”

Penny died later that night aged 17 from meningococcal meningitis type W, a disease which often hides behind symptoms of an everyday illness.

Mrs Lockett is urging students to get the MenACWY vaccine.

She added: “The thing that frustrates me is that uptake of this vaccine has been low among people who are Penny’s age. This seems staggering to me. People don’t appreciate what this disease can do if they haven’t been through it.”

Teenagers are a high risk age group for meningitis and septicaemia and university freshers are particularly at risk because they mix with so many other students.

For more information on getting the vaccine go to www.meningitis.org/oneshot