Alex Beaumont, 15, had been unwell in the week before his diagnosis, and it is this situation that his mother Rebecca Beaumont thinks created “the perfect storm” for meningococcal disease.

“He got run down with the normal winter lurgy. It was his really sore throat that made him susceptible,” Mrs Beaumont said.

“He hadn’t been well so hadn’t been at school. He’d had no long-term or extended contact with anyone else.”

On Tuesday last week Alex had a stiff neck and a headache, which he took paracetamol for, but still left for Launceston Church Grammar School as normal.

Within hours his headache had worsened and he became sensitive to light, so went to see the school nurse and was picked up by Mrs Beaumont.

“I was shaking and wanted to do nothing. I didn’t want to speak and wanted to crawl into a ball. It wasn’t pleasant,” Alex said.

Alex’s shakiness and the difficulty in rousing him was the first sign of something more serious.

“I knew this was more than just being sick so I called our GP and was put on a waiting list [for an appointment] and they referred me to the after-hours clinic,” Mrs Beaumont said.

“I thought about all these symptoms as a whole and knew something wasn’t right. I really wanted to talk to someone about it so I called healthdirect. It’s that parental instinct. Don’t ignore that little voice inside.”

After hearing Alex’s symptoms the healthdirect nurse called an ambulance, which arrived within three minutes.

“The decision was made for me by the nurse at the end of the phone,” Mrs Beaumont said.

Paramedic Dave Munting lead the team and it was he who made the decision to treat Alex with high-dose antibiotics before taking him to hospital.

When Alex was admitted to Launceston General Hospital he said his heart rate and temperature were “off the charts” and the number of medical professionals treating him at once scared him.

A series of blood tests and a lumbar puncture were ordered to diagnose his illness, with the first tests coming back clear.

“Because the antibiotics were administered so early, treatment had started before [the disease] took hold,” Mrs Beaumont said.

By Wednesday Alex was starting to feel better and was discharged from hospital to await the results of the lumbar puncture.

“On Thursday afternoon we got the call to come back urgently, they were waiting for us in the children’s ward,” Mrs Beaumont said.

Alex was put into isolation immediately, his lumbar puncture confirming he had meningococcal meningitis.

“The doctor who gave us the news said there was a window [in treatment] because the first dose was wearing off and we needed to get the antibiotics back into his system.”

He was treated in hospital with more antibiotics until Saturday afternoon when he was discharged again.

While he still has headaches, doctors are confident Alex will make a full recovery by the end of this week with daily antibiotic treatment.

“They can’t believe how healthy he is and how quickly he recovered,” Mrs Beaumont said.

“We are so lucky. There were so many times we went ‘what if?’. What if I’d waited [for the after-hours clinic], or if the paramedics didn’t give him antibiotics and had taken him to hospital.”

Life will be quiet this week as the multi-sport player recovers fully, but Alex expects to be back at school and on the court and field in no time.

“We send our gratitude to the Ambulance Tasmania and Launceston General Hospital. They have been amazing,” Mrs Beaumont said.

Public Health acting director Dr Scott McKeown said meningococcal disease was a rare, but serious, illness caused by bacteria called Neisseria meningitides.

“The different strains of these bacteria are named by letters of the alphabet such as A, B, C, W and Y,” Dr McKeown said.

“Meningococcal disease usually takes the form of a blood infection (septicemia) or an infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord (meningitis).”