I lost my arm and leg after being run over by two tube trains

Sarah de Lagarde, 46, a communications executive and mum-of-two, fell onto the train track at a London station in September 2022. Sarah was hit by two trains and lost her right arm and leg. She now uses two prosthetic limbs. Here she explains how she has tried to rebuild her life...

Trigger warning: contains graphic descriptions of bodily injury.

"Sorry to trouble you but I think I’m dying. Please don’t let go of my hand," I told the kind doctor who reached down to me as I lay on the train tracks at High Barnet station after slipping on an uneven platform and falling down the gap between the train and the platform.

I felt as though a block of ice was slowly liquidising across my chest and, alongside the excruciating pain, which was worse than childbirth or anything I’d ever experienced, I felt a strange sense of calm.

I had been working late that evening and fell asleep on the tube. I’d woken up just before 10pm at the wrong station and, feeling tired and dazed, realised I’d travelled eight miles past my stop. It was raining heavily and the platform was deserted. I took a couple of steps along the platform then realised I was going the wrong way. I turned and slipped, and fell backwards into the gap between a stationary train and the platform. I broke my nose and two teeth in the fall. I screamed for help but there were no staff or people there to hear me.

I blacked out for a few moments but when I came to I realised I was lying in the dark. I shouted for help but there was no one there. I lost my right arm when the train I was lying next to left the platform. I could see my iPhone glowing a few feet away along the track and I tried to crawl towards it. I was screaming and stunned with shock when I heard the rumble of a second train coming towards me. My right leg was completely severed as it went past me. I was hit by 22 tons of steel.

Lying there, feeling the ice cold liquid spread inside me, I had what I can only describe as a vision of my young daughters, who were then seven and 11.

"When are you coming home, Mummy?" they said. I could see them so clearly. I knew they were expecting me back and that I couldn’t lose consciousness. I needed to find all the strength I had.

I lay on the tracks, unable to move, for 15 minutes before a passer-by heard my cries for help and it was another 45 minutes before they finally managed to send a stretcher down to lift me out. The next few days and weeks passed in a blur of morphine and I was bed-bound in the hospital ward for three weeks.

The aftermath

On the one hand, I felt incredibly grateful that I had survived as I thought, lying down there, that I was going to die. But on the other hand, I didn’t know how I could possibly rebuild my life. I’d always had such an active life and loved sport. Just a few weeks before the accident, my husband Jeremy and I had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. How could I live like this? How could I be the active mum, wife and employee I had always been?

I spent four weeks on the trauma ward, six weeks in a rehabilitation unit and I somehow managed to walk out of the door with my first prosthetic leg on the 1st December 2022.

My husband, Jeremy, who works in finance, also launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise the £250,000 we needed for my high-tech prosthetic arm. We reached the target in less than three weeks and I cried with gratitude at every donation.

I arrived home a day earlier than my daughters expected. It was wonderful to be home for Christmas but I can’t underestimate the toll it took on the four of us.

Impact on my children

My daughters have suffered from separation anxiety, memory loss and impaired cognitive abilities from the trauma of my accident. One day, I just didn’t come home. They had to grow up overnight and do things like make their lunch and help me get dressed, that they shouldn’t necessarily have to do at such a young age.

We’ve all had counselling as a family and individually, which has helped, but I have to face the fact that, due to muscle wastage, I will inevitably end up in a wheelchair and there will be a time when I can’t walk again.

Every time the girls use public transport, I have to fight the sense of panic I feel. I have to take Ubers everywhere as I can’t face taking the tube ever again but last year we tried to take the Eurostar train to Disneyland in Paris. I had the biggest panic attack I’ve ever had. The moment I stepped onto the platform, I couldn’t breathe and thought I was going to die.

I saw how frightened the children were by my panic attack and I somehow managed to keep it together on the way back. I wanted to show the girls that we can still have these experiences as a family and didn’t want to let them down.

Facing daily struggles

Although the incident gave me a whole new appreciation and sense of awe for how remarkable our bodies can be and how they can repair themselves, there are so many little annoying things I can’t do anymore which makes day-to-day life difficult.

Everything, from getting dressed to making a sandwich, to tying my hair in a ponytail, takes such a lot of time and effort. I can’t forget for a single moment that I have lost my arm and my leg because I am constantly reminded.

I’ve also had depression on and off, terrible nightmares, deep post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and although my family and friends and my colleagues have been wonderful and supportive, life is a constant struggle.

I’m trying to focus on the future and the impending legal case, and not dwell on the past.

Taking action

I have been trying to engage with TfL ever since the accident. Keir Starmer, who was my MP, has written to them and requested meetings but so far, Sadiq Khan, chairman of TfL, has declined to meet. They have never taken any responsibility but there are an average of 16 incidents a month, from injuries to fatalities, on TfL.

TfL argues that statistically, this is an insignificant number but these are human lives and it’s not just those people who are affected, it has a huge ripple effect on all their friends and family too.

In February of this year, I felt I had no other option but to file my case in court. The lack of staff, CCTV footage being watched in real time on the platform and inadequate safety procedures are issues that need to be urgently reviewed.

We live in an ageing society and more needs to be done to protect people. Making public transport safe and accessible, closing the gap between the train and platform, should be seen not just as the morally right thing to do but also as an investment in a world-leading city such as London.

I will never not be grateful that I survived that day but I want to ensure change for my children and I don’t want what happened to me to ever happen to anyone else.

Transport for London (Tfl) comment

Nick Dent, director of Customer Operations at London Underground, said: "TfL is responding to a legal claim which has been brought by solicitors on behalf of Sarah de Lagarde and I am not in a position to comment publicly further. However, our thoughts continue to be with Sarah and her family following the devastating incident at High Barnet station."