Mother held teenage daughter in her arms and loved her to death

Sara Loo. Photo / Supplied

Caroline Loo climbed into her dying daughter's hospital bed and loved her to death.

Loo said Sara's last hour was the "perfect ending to an amazing life".

"It was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do but it was incredible for her and for me to be given that privilege to end it like that," she said.

"They moved her over and I got in bed with her. I wrapped my arms around her and I just loved her for about an hour. I told her it was time. Her mind was still up to it but her body couldn't do it any more."

Caroline likened Sara's battle to beat the infection to running a marathon every day she was in hospital.

"I gave her permission from all of us to go. 'You've run really hard, rest now. It's time to relax and let it all go'. It was a really personal moment."

After Sara died, her tubes were removed and she was taken to a room where hospital staff and patients could say their goodbyes.

"I sat there for five hours while surgeons, orderlies, people from the recovery room, doctors and nurses all filed in one by one."

Before Sara got sick she attended James Hargest College, played hockey and had just been to her school ball.

When Sara first got sick with flu-like symptoms and a rash, the doctor diagnosed her immediately and administered antibiotics.

Sara's father, Robert, said "The doctors were upfront about meningococcal septicaemia being one of the deadliest diseases you can contract, and that some people never survive it."