Meningitis survivor finally gets prosthetic hand

A student says life is "getting almost as close as it can be to normal" after receiving his first prosthetic hand two years after having parts of his limbs amputated.

Hamish Wilson was three weeks into his degree at the University of Southampton when he became ill with meningitis in October 2024, leading to parts of all four of his limbs being amputated after he developed sepsis.

Wilson, from Crowborough in East Sussex, received prosthetic legs in January 2025 and said having hands was something he had wanted for a long time.

The 20-year-old told the BBC: "It's really cool. It's not the full finished product yet and I've only had it for about 24 hours, but it's great."

He added: "I think life is getting almost as close as it can be to normal.

"If something like this happens, it's already happened, it's an irreversible thing. So, you need to accept that it's happened and concentrate energy on thinking how am I going to move forward?"

Wilson said his new prosthetic hand could be controlled by an app on his phone, where he could change its grip to help him pick up different things.

He said he had a different strain of meningitis to the one which caused the fatal outbreak in Kent in March.

About a million young people were offered a vaccine during the summer to combat the virus after more than 20 young people were infected in the outbreak, which was linked to a Canterbury nightclub and killed two people.

Wilson has decided to raise awareness of the infection and how it has affected him by posting on social media.

"I've done videos on how I play PS5 with adaptive controllers, I've done fashion videos to get people to realise that showing off your difference is fine," he said.

"And yes, there's certainly people online that say it's not, but you don't listen to them because they're wrong."

A keen athlete, Wilson says he now hopes to get running blades, adding that he wants to "try and get a medal round my neck if possible".

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