An English couple have narrated their “desperate” struggle to free a fellow tube passenger who got her neck trapped between the train door.
Ruth Rubin and her husband Elad were travelling home from Shakespeare’s Globe theatre late on Tuesday night when a woman “aged in her 40s or 50s” became stuck in the doors of the Northern Line train.
Mr. Rubin said the woman, who appeared to be with a male friend, “was not yelling” but was “whimpering ‘help me, help me.’”
The couple said they were disappointed by the response from the tube driver, who they said took too long to respond and did not check on the woman once she was freed.
“I’m somewhat disappointed with the behaviour of the driver,” he said. “I find it hard to believe he couldn’t see in his mirror or camera that something was wrong.”
He added that while there was not a sense of panic, passengers were initially worried the train would start moving from the platform into the tunnel while the woman’s head was still outside the carriage.
He said the driver eventually released the doors and came around to disarm one of the emergency alarms, while the woman, who he believes was not physically injured “besides being traumatised”, was helped by a fellow passenger.
Mr and Mrs Rubin say they are not sure how long the woman was stuck because “every second felt like an hour”. She said it could have been “90 or 120 seconds”.
