Meningitis girl wins place at Cambridge

When doctors told Charlotte Charteris she would have to lose both arms and her right leg, she thought her dreams of university were over.

The 19-year-old had been struck by one of the most lethal forms of meningitis and came within hours of death, surviving only because of the multiple amputation.

But today, only two and a half years later, she is celebrating an extraordinary triumph over adversity by winning a place at Cambridge University. She is now determined to succeed and enjoy life. "Charlotte is a fighter," said her astonished mother, Laura. "She has done all this by herself. We are so proud of her because there have been so many ups and downs."

The eldest of three daughters from Orpington, Charlotte's three A grades at A-level had already won her an unconditional place to read English and history of art at York University. But in 2002 she was struck down by meningococcal septicaemia.

"I'd never felt so rough in my life," she said. "Strangely, I started to feel a bit better and managed to eat. It was a pizza from Pizza Express. I'll never forget it because it was the last meal I ate with my own hands."

Charlotte, who takes antidepressants, added: "I still get depressed when I think about what I'm missing. I always loved the feeling of holding a boyfriend's hand - intertwining my fingers with his - but I'll never know that again.

"I sometimes wonder if it would have been easier if I'd caught meningitis when I was younger. Perhaps that way, I wouldn't be able to remember what it was like to have hands."

As her condition deteriorated, Charlotte - who was also robbed of her hearing in one ear and a substantial proportion of her sight - developed a purple rash across her stomach.

By the time she arrived at Bromley Hospital her kidneys, liver and lungs had collapsed and she had slipped into a coma. At that time doctors gave her between 12 to 24 hours to live. "They said she would almost certainly have a heart attack," said her mother. "In that situation, their only option was to open up her chest and physically massage her heart."

But her heart held out and she was moved to King's College Hospital, where surgeons broke the devastating news that she had developed gangrene and they needed to amputate. "It broke my heart when we agreed to the surgery but there was no other choice," said her mother.

Charlotte had further operations to restore some of her sight and then to remove her right arm below the elbow and a section of her left foot which had also become gangrenous.

She decided it would be too difficult to move to York and applied to study English Literature at Pembroke College, Cambridge. She said of her acceptance letter: "The news took a little while to sink in. I thought 'My God, you didn't think you could do this, but you have'. It was a brilliant feeling.

"Now I'm planning to send my freshers' photographs to the surgeons, the prosthetists, occupational therapists and all those people who have helped me on my journey here.

"I think it's a nice way to thank them for all they've done."