Sarah de Lagarde on the road to recovery after her horror fall on the Northern Line

A WOMAN who lost her leg and arm after being run over by two tube trains in an unimaginable ordeal is fundraising for a futuristic bionic arm.

Sarah de Lagarde, who is learning to walk again, will tomorrow (Friday) be discharged from hospital and head back home to Camden Town in what promises to be an emotional return to her husband and children two months after the accident.

The 44 year-old told the New Journal how she was looking forward to what would feel like the “best Christmas ever” and decking out her house in a “tinsel explosion”. She sustained life-changing injuries after falling onto the tracks at High Barnet station on September 30 where she lay calling out for help for 15 minutes without anyone realising.

Ms de Lagarde, who had conquered Mount Kilimanjaro in a dream trip with her husband just a few weeks before, said: “All I remember is thinking to myself as I was lying in that dirty ditch in High Barnet that I did not climb Mount Kilimanjaro to die here in the cold wet gravel. I am not dying here. No way. I need to be with my daughters. One minute you are on top of the world, the next you’re hitting rock bottom,”

She told the New Journal how she was left “bloodied and mangled” after being hit by a train leaving the station, and was then run over again by another one pulling in. More than £200,000 of a £250,000 target has been raised in a fundraiser for a new line of incredible technologically advanced prosthetics that are capable of acting on brain signals.

Ms de Lagarde said: “The good news is that I am going home after two months, which must be the longest ever commute. But I miss my limbs. I am learning how to walk again and it’s nice to stand up and feel tall again, after being in a wheelchair.”

She added: “I can walk with the same gait, but it’s a different type of feeling. You can’t wiggle your toes and sometimes you trip over. But it’s just the first prosthetic, and they are always a bit bigger than they should be.”

While she described her new leg as fairly basic, replacing an arm with all its moving parts is not so straightforward.

Specialist bionic arms, which respond to electronic nerve pulses, are not available on the NHS but can be brought privately.

“You can get a basic functioning arm on the NHS, but those ones are more for cosmetic reasons,” she said. “We looked into the technology, and spoke to a lady in France who works with arms that have a bionic function. It works with targeted muscle reinvention and electric impulse activation of the muscles. The brain sends signals to the bionic arm.”

Ms de Lagarde said: “Right now my motivation is this amazing technology – what’s the point of inventing it if we cannot use it? We thought if we can’t pay for it, then I’m hoping people can help me. Hopefully I can help make it available for others later on.”

Ms de Lagarde recalled how that Friday night around 9pm she was coming back on the Northern Line from her work in communications at a central London firm.

“I was supposed to get off at Camden but I woke up at the end of the line,” she said.

“I was shocked because I thought I had just rested my eyes for just two seconds. I was meant to fly to Germany for my Dad’s 70th birthday the next day so I had been keen to come home and pack.

“I jumped off the train, and then I ran back to catch the same tube as it was going back to Camden Town again.

That night it had been raining. I slipped and fell between the platform and the train.”

She added: “I did call for help for quite some time. There must have been people there, but maybe they had their AirPods in and couldn’t hear me. I had broken my nose and front teeth, and injured the side of my face. Then the train departed. It crushed my arm and leg and I was immobile.”

Sarah and her husband Jeremy at Mount Kilimanjaro just months before the life-changing accident

Ms de Lagarde said she had already lost a lot of blood when a second train came into the platform hitting her again. After 15 minutes someone heard her cries for help and the emergency services were called. She was taken by air ambulance to the Royal London, Whitechapel, before being transferred to a specialist amputee unit.

Ms de Lagarde said: “It really impressed me how the rescue was handled. They managed to pull me out from under the carriage and to attend to me on the platform. They said it was a miracle. I could have died in so many different ways.

“They also said I was a rare patient because most people thrash around and scream, but I was very focused and saying I have to call my husband.”

Her husband Jeremy got a call at 3am from his wife having spent the evening calling her worriedly until her phone died.

“This is a story that could happen to anyone,” she said. “Everyone takes public transport. It’s such a mundane thing to do normally. But I think the way the money has been raised in such a short time, it will give people hope. Some people have donated £5. I find that amazing. There’s a person that doesn’t have much who wants to help. It all adds up.”

The bionic arm costs £150,000 but there are costs of fine tuning, complex surgery, rehab and training.

Ms de Lagarde said: “The NHS was so impressive, from the rescue to the surgeons. If we raise more than the target we will donate it to the NHS.”

She said that she was looking forward to getting back to life in Camden Town, in particular a morning coffee at Casa Tua cafe, a pub lunch at the Lord Stanley or a loaf delivery from Bread by Bike in Brecknock Road.

Her husband Jeremy said: “When the time is right, she wants to return to work and do what she loves. She wants to actively contribute to our society. She wants to be useful. Having a well-designed prosthetic arm and leg will help her achieve that.”

l Can you help Sarah reach her fundraising goal? See the donation link at: www.tinyurl.com/mrxfj9d5