New beginning for braveheart Mehjabi

Tears welled up in her eyes as she recalled the painful 60 minutes she spent lying helplessly on a Metro track under a train, three coaches of which had run over her legs.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she recalled the painful 60 minutes she spent lying helplessly on a Metro track under a train, three coaches of which had run over her legs.

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On March 26, Mehjabi (who goes by one name), a 22-year-old Dehradun-based trainee journalist arrived in Delhi to visit family. She was the first in queue waiting to board the Metro at Rajiv Chowk station when she was accidentally pushed on the track when the train was about 20 metres away.

Before she could figure out what had happened, the train was running over her. By the time the driver applied emergency break, it was too late. Three of the four Metro coaches had run over her legs.

"Initially, people thought I had died. Only when I screamed with all the energy that they hurried to get help. It took nearly an hour to pull me from under the train," she said, adding, "The pain was unbearable."

The next day she was referred to a private hospital for surgery. Her worst fear had come true. She lost both her legs; the right leg was amputated from above the knee and the left one was cut from a few inches below the knee.

Youngest among five daughters of a tailor, her world has changed completely. "Nothing is same as before. But I haven’t lost hope,” she said.

She got her articficial limbs last month and is learning how to use them.

All Mehjabi wants now is a government job. "I can't run around like before. A government job will provide me the kind of stability I'm looking at now," she said.