A Glasgow man lost both his legs after they were set alight when he fell onto a train track and was electrocuted in a horrifying accident.
Paul Johnson was walking home when the 29-year-old, from the Southside, fell and was electrocuted at around 4am. He woke up to find his legs were on fire but his bag was lying in the middle of the track with his phone inside.
He had no choice but to crawl over the track to grab his phone and call for help.
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Medics swooped to the scene and saved his life but Paul lost both his legs in the accident.
Recalling the tragic night that changed his life, he said: “That night I was coming home at 4am and decided to take a shortcut across the overhead beams of the railway line.
"I was electrocuted by the overhead wires and that caused me to fall onto the tracks and black out. For a couple of hours I was knocked out cold.
"When I woke up my legs were on fire and I was in terrible pain. My bag was in the middle of the track with my phone inside, so I had to roll over to get it.
"I pulled myself to safety and called an ambulance. Twenty minutes later they arrived and saved my life.”
He spent a month in intensive care before being transferred to a burns ward and, although he began a slow physical recovery, the psychological effects were brutal.
He added: “I focused on the physical side, but didn’t deal with the emotional side at all.
"The first time I had to transfer myself from the bed to the wheelchair, it took me five minutes to cross a tiny gap and that’s when I realised: ‘This is what my life’s going to be like’. It hit me like a truck.”
Paul isolated himself away from reality when his family decided to get in touch with Finding Your Feet - which helped turn his life around with help from a £38,322 grant using money raised by Health Lottery Scotland.
It was founded by Cor Hutton, 52, who herself lost her hands and feet after contracting pneumonia. Her initiative now helps 800 amputees and people born without limbs.
She invited Paul for a coffee which turned his life around.
He said: “I isolated myself, but Cor knew that getting out of the house would be better for me. It was only at that point that I started to feel comfortable with my disability. Before that, I’d only been with my family or in a hospital setting.
“I hated the idea of going out and people looking at me. But through Finding Your Feet, I got my confidence back and now if someone stares at me I’ll give them a smile and a nod. Getting more involved with clubs and going out and seeing other amputees really helped me grow my confidence and become the person that I am today.
“I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, so I couldn’t imagine what it was like for other people to look at me.
“Before that, most of my time was spent out with friends or sleeping. I had pretty bad mental health from 16 and I didn’t do very well at school and ended up working in a friend’s parents’ restaurant and going out drinking a lot.
"It was an ‘work-drink-sleep-repeat’ thing, but I knew something was coming, it was like a ticking time bomb.”
Finding Your Feet is based in Paisley but operates in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Fife and Ayrshire.
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