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In just a few short hours, John Kach went from a carefree college basketball player celebrating an undefeated season, to a suspected ebola patient, lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life.

It was March 2000, and Kach, a Newport, Rhode Island native and Salve Regina freshman, was in the prime of his life. Little did he know that six weeks after being admitted to hospital with a 105 degree fever, stiffness of the neck and severe vomiting, he would wake up an amputee.

Such, he told a gathering at Humber College this week, are the ravages of Meningococcal meningitis, a vaccine-preventable disease.

"At my pre-college physical, my doctor recommended the vaccine, but didn't have it in his office. He told me to go to the clinic when I got to campus, but I got preoccupied with partying," he said at Humber's inaugural Meningitis Awareness Day Monday. "I was a freshman; I thought I was invincible. It was the last thing on my mind."

All that changed on March 10, 2000. Kach was spending a quiet evening in with his girlfriend when the symptoms set in hard and fast - but he refused to go to hospital.

"I woke up around 6 a.m. the next morning and I could barely sit up, I couldn't stand to look at the light, my neck was stiff and I found it extremely hard to even lift my legs," he said.

At the hospital, doctors immediately set about doing every test they could think of, but it wasn't until one noticed a purplish-reddish rash on his arms and back that the gravity of his illness really set in.

"That was the sure sign it wasn't the flu," Kach said.

He was immediately transferred to another hospital as his vital organs began to shut down, and he was placed in a drug-induced coma. His parents were informed that he might not live through the night, and a priest was brought in to give Kach his last rites.

But he did make it through that night. And the next one after that, too.

Kach lived six weeks in the coma, during which time he suffered a collapsed lung, developed septicemia (blood poisoning), and began bleeding out of his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, which caused doctors to suspect he had contracted the ebola virus. Then gangrene set in, and both Kach's legs and all of his fingers had to be amputated.

"I woke up an amputee. It was pretty crazy," he said, noting that he spent the next three months in the hospital and underwent a further 25 to 30 surgeries.

From there, he went to a rehabilitation hospital in White Plains, N.Y., where he spent the next six months learning to do the simple things - eat, dress, walk - all over again

"When I got out of the rehab hospital, I knew I had lived for a reason," he said. "I never had anyone come to my high school or university to tell me about this disease I had never heard of, and yet it managed to change my life."

And that's precisely why the nursing community at Humber brought Kach in to speak about the "devastating disease" that strikes approximately 200 to 300 Canadians every year, said Catherine McKee, a nurse with Humber's campus health centre. Caused by a bacterial infection, meningitis is an inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord that strikes young people hardest.

"Lifestyles associated with college life tend to make students more vulnerable - they live in close quarters in dormitories, spend time in crowded lecture halls and share items that come in contact with the mouth, like water bottles and lipstick," McKee said, noting that for that reason, Humber is committed to promoting preventative measures, such as broad spectrum vaccinations against meningitis.

One such vaccine is Menactra, given to persons aged 2 to 55 to protect them against invasive meningococcal disease. It is available at Humber's health centre for $120 per dose, McKee said, noting that the student health care plan covers 80 per cent, so the cost to students is just $23.

That's a small price to pay for your life, Kach said.

"What's $23? A T-shirt? A couple of drinks at the bar?

"What's $23 compared to what happened to me; compared to the two legs I'm wearing now? It's $23 versus $60,000 just to walk. That's a no brainer," he said. "Go to your health services, and ask questions about it."