Ojeda woke up in the hospital on June 10, 2014 after a week since he last remembered falling asleep in his own bed.

He contracted meningococcal B & doctors amputated both of his legs, as well as eight of his fingers due to the effects of the disease.

According to Charlie Fautin, deputy director of the Benton County Health Department, “meningitis is an opportunistic disease. Healthy individuals who harbor the meningococcal bacteria without showing symptoms are known as carriers. The best defense we have is for all of those (susceptible) people to be protected.”

Ojeda said. “I was an athlete, I was so healthy. It doesn’t matter though, it doesn’t discriminate. It’ll kill you.”

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