Anna Gallo’s voice sounds surprisingly clear for someone who was on the brink of death less than two weeks ago.

She answers the phone at 10am in Tokyo.

“The nurse just came, sorry,” she said.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be back later.”

This crammed hospital bed has been the center of the 24-year-old’s world since she woke up from a coma on February 10th.

This is in stark contrast to the month she and her partner Liam McDonald just spent traveling around Japan, visiting ski slopes, kimonos and karaoke bars.

It was a dream trip until the end.

“That night, we were about to get on a plane and fly home when everything went downhill quickly,” says Anna.

From ski slopes to septic shock

On the night of February 5, the young Queensland couple was huddled in their Tokyo hotel room when Anna woke up shivering.

The tremors quickly turned into tremors. Then uncontrollable vomiting occurred.

“I actually passed out in the bathroom and my partner woke me up,” Anna says.

Although they suspected food poisoning, the two still held out hope that they would be able to board the plane.

But by 4pm, just four hours before takeoff, Liam realized something that changed everything.

Red spots began to bloom all over Anna’s body.

That was a sign of septic shock. Septic shock is a life-threatening complication in which the body’s immune response attacks its own organs.

2 hour slot

Liam called an ambulance.

Anna was confused and unsteady and had to be strapped to a stretcher on the way to the hospital to prevent injury.

She had to piece together her own story from the traumatic memories of others.

Doctors at the National Global Medical Center in Tokyo diagnosed Anna with meningococcal type B infection, which rapidly deteriorated into meningitis and septic shock.

She was in a coma for three days, and her life was stopped by a machine and intravenous antibiotics.

Although she remembers nothing of those lost days, they are etched in her mother’s memory.

Silence at 30,000 feet

While Anna was in a coma, her Atherton-based parents, Guice and Adrian Gallo, were living out a real-time nightmare in Australia.

My daughter’s boyfriend would update her on the phone whenever he had news to share.

“She’s sick.”

“Her condition is deteriorating.”

“We’re going to the hospital.”

The final call came as they stood at the check-in gate at Cairns International Airport, preparing to head to her bedside.

“The doctor said her blood pressure had become dangerously low and she would need a blood transfusion and be intubated,” Guice recalled.

“We asked her if she was OK. He said, ‘I don’t know.'”

The Gallos spent the next eight hours in the air over the Pacific Ocean, wondering if their daughter would still be alive when they landed.

“We must have said to each other a hundred times, ‘Is this true?'” Giese says.

“It just didn’t feel real.”

empty ICU bed

When they arrived in Tokyo, the news was dire.

Doctors warned her daughter might never wake up from her coma.

Even if she survives, she is likely to suffer permanent brain damage, he said.

“I was so angry that he suggested it,” Giese says.

“But I think he was forced to do it.”

The girl was lying there with tubes and wires sticking out of her body.

“I watch a lot of ER shows, and that’s exactly what happened,” Giese said.

When they returned to the ICU the next day, Anna’s room was empty.

Panic began.

However, Anna did not use decline as an excuse to move.

She was dragged out of the intensive care unit and into the advanced care unit.

“She was sitting on the bed, her eyes open, the tubes being removed,” Guice said.

“She was awake.”

Australia’s vaccine gap

Anna is now preparing to return home.

She is still unable to walk because she has necrotic lesions (patches of dead or dying tissue) on her feet and legs. A poignant reminder of how close bacteria came to victory.

There’s one detail she always comes back to.

Queensland has had a state-funded free immunization program against meningococcal C since 2003, but in 2017 it was upgraded to a “4-in-1” vaccine that covers A, C, W and Y strains.

However, free type B vaccination using the pharmaceutical brand Bexero only began in March 2024.

The only other state with a similar program is South Australia.

Mater Health Service infectious disease director Paul Griffin said Anna’s story was a reminder of why Australia needed a consistent national immunization program.

“Because it’s relatively rare, people perceive the risk to be low,” he says.

“But the consequences can be devastating.

Japan is also not a hotspot for the disease.

The country averaged less than five cases per year from 2003 to 2020.

There were 109 cases in Australia in 2024 alone.

Finally back home

A week and a half after waking up from her coma, Anna’s hair was combed and braided.

Her brain scan came back perfect.

Lesions take time to heal and scarring is permanent.

But she’s alive.

She started a new job at Griffith University on the Gold Coast just two weeks before her trip and is hoping to get back to work as soon as possible.

“I’m just so grateful,” she says.

“I will continue to cherish each day.”