Heartbroken parents have revealed how their teenage son died from meningitis – despite not having the tell-tale purple rash.
Lewis Hilton, 19, from Greetland, near Huddersfield, was killed by meningitis B – a deadly strain that he wasn’t protected against.
It claimed his life within 72 hours of his first flu-like symptoms, which prompted his concerned father, Morley, to send him home from work.
But by the time the rugby player arrived in A&E the next day, following a phone call to NHS 111, he was unable to walk by himself or talk.
Doctors did ‘everything they could’ to try and save his life, but it overwhelmed his body. He passed away on January 28 at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.
Mr Hilton, who started playing rugby at the age of six, had been vaccinated against four other strains of meningitis in September.
‘So many people have had flu recently and you’d have thought that’s what it was, until he got the headache in the morning, and by then it was too late.’