A PLUCKY sports student shared the stage with Olympic legend Seb Coe after overcoming serious illness to graduate.

Ellie Thompson, 21, of Kirkby Lonsdale received her sports science degree from Lord Coe at Loughborough University, watched by proud parents Elizabeth and Glyn.

She told the Gazette that when the day came she could hardly believe she was graduating having been hospitalised with 32 blood clots on her lungs in January and missing several weeks' study and an important exam.

To recognise Ellie’s determination, the university has awarded her its Development Trust Prize for outstanding final year student in sport and health sciences.

The former Casterton and Sedbergh School pupil broke her foot while running the Prague Marathon back in May 2016 and, unbeknown to her, bone marrow leaked into her blood and triggered the clotting.

Months later, when Ellie began suffering from shortness of breath, chest pains and fatigue, she assumed it was a chest infection, although her worried housemates were not convinced.

“I thought I would get my exams out of the way and get it sorted afterwards,” said Ellie, whose mum owns Dinky Shoes, in Kendal.

However, after sitting two out of three exams she collapsed on campus and was admitted to a leading respiratory hospital in Leicester, where she spent ten days being given acute care – including oxygen, stomach injections and scans that left her “radioactive” for two days.

Ellie's fitness deteriorated from playing hockey three or four times a week, to “huffing and puffing” if she walked as little as five metres. “Because I'm quite fit I didn't really notice what was wrong at first,” she said. “That's how it got so bad, because my body was able to cope with low oxygen."

Ellie’s parents travelled to her bedside from Kirkby Lonsdale, having been alerted by a paramedic as the student was too short of breath to make the phone call herself.

Friends rallied round, too, driving her to lectures and tutorials when she was well enough to return to her studies yet still suffering extreme fatigue.

Ellie – who describes herself as “a bit of a strong-minded person” and “quite competitive” – managed to catch up on four weeks’ missed work in a week, and was determined to graduate alongside her friends in July.

“I think it’s pushed me a little bit further than I thought I could be pushed," she said. "Somehow I’ve managed to pull it out of the bag alongside everything else.”

She now hopes her experiences will benefit her chosen future career of coaching or school teaching. In the meantime she is working at Kirkby Lonsdale’s Royal Hotel and a gap year beckons, with a trip to New Zealand or Australia in January, and a trek to Everest Base Camp in September 2018.