“I contracted E.coli O157 at 10 years old from infected meat in my school dinner. At first my mother thought that I’d picked up a stomach bug. I couldn’t keep any food down and was suffering from extreme diarrhoea. On the second week my mother got a doctor. He pressed my abdomen and I felt a really bad shooting pain up my back and screamed – it was that bad.
One night I threw up about a teaspoon of this blackish substance which looked like blood. My parents rushed me to A&E where I was immediately hooked up to drips and my blood was taken for testing. I think they found E.coli in my system at that point.
Next thing I knew the nurses were rushing and was all a bit of a panic. I thought I was going to die. I was put into an RAF helicopter to transfer to another hospital. By now my kidneys had failed.
After two weeks on dialysis my kidneys started back up. I managed to get away with no lasting damage, but some of my classmates have lasting effects.”