A woman who almost died after slipping onto Tube tracks last summer has had an emotional reunion with the man who saved her from an oncoming train.
Tegan Badham, 21, from North Wales, was planning to get on the Victoria Line at King’s Cross Underground Station on July 10 after spending the day at Wireless music festival with friends.
She “stumbled” from the platform onto a live track around 6pm.
While being shocked by 630 volts, the beautician from Cwmbran, Torfaen remained confused and injured on the tracks as a Tube travelled toward her.
A man nearby grabbed her hand and pulled her to safety with seconds to spare. As she was being tended to by transport staff and emergency services for her injuries, the man left.
The pair had not spoken since.
But following an online appeal to find her hero and nine months after the near-death experience, Ms Badham has been reunited with her “lifesaver” in a meeting she said has brought “closure”.
Ms Badham had the chance to thank Anthony Smith, a 31-year-old hotel developer from London, on the BBC’s new television show Reunion Hotel, hosted by Alex Jones.
“I can’t go through my days without not thanking him for doing such a heroic thing," said Ms Badham.
"If he wasn’t there... I would be dead."
On the show, the pair hugged and Ms Badham showed him a new lightning bolt tattoo on her lower arm.
“It’s amazing to meet you," she said.
“I just want to give you a cwtch, [hug]. I don’t know what to say but thank you - I’m alive."
Mr Smith, originally from Australia, said he wouldn’t call himself a “hero” and described his rescue as “instinctive”.
“I just saw you in there and thought ‘person in hole, get person out of hole otherwise train is coming’,” he said on the show.
“I’m not a strong guy physically, it was just instinctive that I needed to do something - I just crouched down and luckily it worked out.”
Mr Smith admitted: “I regret leaving because it makes no sense from a first aid point of view or a human-to-human point of view - you should stay with someone who has just had an incident like that."
Ms Badham had travelled from south Wales to London to see Nicki Minaj perform at the music festival.
“As I tried to pull myself up, the electric goes through me," she earlier recalled to the BBC.
“Think of cramp in your leg when it really hurts, but imagine that in your whole body.
“I could hear people shouting ‘the train is coming, the train is coming’ - it was crazy.
“I saw someone on the platform. When I saw the lights of the train, I just looked at him because I didn’t want to see that train."
She remembered Mr Smith saying "give me your hands" before pulling her back to the platform.
Paramedics then took her to London’s St Thomas’ Hospital for treatment to her electric burns.
Ms Badham said she also owed gratitude to her £40 Pretty Little Thing rubber boots which she said also helped save her life.
"Paramedics said if I didn’t have rubber boots on I most probably would have died," she said.
