Kieran Senior has beaten a life-threatening case of meningitis to gain a first-class honours degree. He will wed his childhood sweetheart, Amanda Le Prevost, in just three weeks’ time.

MENINIGITIS victim Kieran Senior is celebrating beating the odds simply to survive – and gain a first-class degree. Now the Guernseyman, who graduated from Portsmouth University, is planning to marry childhood sweetheart Amanda Le Prevost on 16 August.

Despite battling the life-threatening illness and suffering total memory loss, the 20-year-old was this month awarded first-class honours in computer science, as well as the Adam Crump Memorial Prize for personal achievement.  ‘My family got me through it all,’ he told the Guernsey Press. ‘It was hard work, but I got through.’

Mr Senior’s illness struck in December 2006 during a work placement in Reading. He woke at 4am with a severe headache and stumbled into the street, unable even to remember his own name. Paramedics took him to the Royal Berkshire Hospital, which contacted his parents in Guernsey straight away.

‘At first we didn’t know what to do,’ said Kieran’s father, Jeff. ‘It was one of those feelings where you knew something was wrong. We were hoping we were going to receive a message that he had a migraine.’ But doctors feared their son had suffered a brain haemorrhage or a stroke. They advised the couple to get there as soon as possible.

‘We literally threw some clothes in a case and headed to the airport. The only information was that he was stable but very ill indeed.’  By the time they got to the hospital, Kieran had been diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis and encephalitis.