Survivor of the Ladbroke rail disaster speaks about the tragedy 25 years later | British news

The Paddington train crash destroyed hundreds of lives after two trains collided in London – and its effects are still being felt 25 years later.

October 5, 1999 started out as a normal day for hundreds of train passengers trying to get in and out of the capital.

But shortly after 8am, two trains collided head-on after one of them missed a red signal.

Some passengers were caught in a deadly fire when the diesel engines caught fire.

The disaster – one of the worst train accidents in modern Britain – killed 31 people and injured almost 500 others.

This is the story of one of the survivors of the tragedy known as the Ladbroke Grove train crash.

‘I saw someone rocking back and forth with burned skin’

Jonathan Duckworth, a 41-year-old shopping center manager who lived in Stroud at the time, had boarded a train to London for a meeting – one of about 15 times he has traveled to the capital for work.

The father-of-two had admired the “beautiful sunny morning and the mist on the fields” as he boarded the 6am train from idyllic Stroud, where he still lives with his wife.

But just as his train was about to reach Paddington, he heard a “tremendous bang, and then it started to shake and slow down.”

He told Metro.co.uk: ‘What touched me most at that moment was the look on people’s faces.

‘Everything happened in slow motion and so quickly. We went through a huge fireball because the diesel had exploded. The entire carriage was covered in orange heat, you could feel it through the explosion.

To his right he saw ‘people staring with white faces.’

“It looked like something out of a horror movie.”

It all happened within seconds, but the horrific memory will stay with him forever.

As the “shocked” faces – passengers on the other train – looked at Jonathan, the carriage “began to lurch around” and spin until it “finally came to a stop.”

“Everything was on one side, it was a complete mess of luggage and everything, and it was quite dark because we were driving through the burning diesel, which turned the windows black,” he said.

The fire brigade arrived on the scene within minutes and found themselves face to face with mangled carriages and those who had managed to get out.

Jonathan and others in his coach G had to ‘fight their way out’ after the door was blocked.

His first thought was that another train was ‘coming to hit us’, but he later learned that all trains in the network had stopped.

People in millions of homes woke up to the news of the crash, including Jonathan’s wife who was on a school trip.

His wife had heard about the crash on the radio, but only found out that he was okay after hearing his voicemail.

The group from his carriage who escaped ‘relatively unscathed’.

They stood around the nearby carriage H, which had caught fire, and watched as the fire brigade tried to gain access.

“You could see the flames getting more intense and you knew if anyone was in there, they didn’t stand a chance. All but one had escaped,” he said.

He saw someone “rocking back and forth with burnt skin” and a man looking at his fingers that had turned into “sausages.”

Although Jonathan escaped the incident with bruises and a brief hospital stay, the effects of the trauma were long-lasting and culminated in PTSD.

He subsequently became chairman of the Paddington Survivors Group, which was formed in the months after the disaster and over the years grew into a rail safety campaign group.

About a year after the crash, seeing news footage of the fatal Selby train disaster on a conference room screen left him shaking and ‘breaking out in a cold sweat’.

“That’s when I realized I was sick, and eventually I started seeking psychiatric help.”

He said his life had “completely changed” and that he essentially “lost my career as it was.”

Jonathan does indeed travel by train, but he has to face the back and towards the locomotive, and if he is not assured of a seat, he does not get on.

He continued, “I think it was a get-up-and-go kind of thing – for some people that works and for others it doesn’t.

“To anyone involved in something like this, don’t assume you’re right and take your time. If you have been in an accident, just because the bruises are gone doesn’t mean the effects will go away. Particularly with an insurance claim, you need to be sure that you absolutely are.”

The survivors and families of the victims will host a wreath-laying ceremony and silent reflection on Saturday, October 5 at 8am, open to the public in the memorial garden at Canal Way, W10 5AA. This will be followed by a Remembrance ticket service at St Helen’s Church, W10 6LP from 11am.

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