It was a sunny, autumnal day exactly 17 years ago when Pam Warren looked up at the sky as she waited for a train from Reading into London and thought ‘I am lucky to be alive’.
Little did she realise how prophetic that thought would be.
Less than an hour later she narrowly survived the Paddington train crash and become a symbol of the horrific train disaster thanks to the facial mask she had to wear to recover from her life-altering injuries.
Pam Warren, today, pictured 17 years on from the Paddington Rail Crash in which she was severely burnt. She said it has taken years to get over her physical and psychological injuries
Pam became known as the ‘Lady In The Mask’ as she had to wear one for 18 months as she recovered from her facial burns
31 people died and 227 were injured when the two trains collided after one went through a red light in 1999
Pam suffered burns to her face and body after the train she was on travelling into London collided nearly head-on with another train leaving the capital that had missed a red signal.
They had a combined speed of about 130 miles per hour.
Thirty-one people were killed and more than 227 were injured, including Pam, then 32, who had been travelling to a training course for her role as a financial adviser.
-
Paraplegic man who thought he would never be a dad turns his…
‘Vain girl’ who suffered third-degree burns to 85% of her…
-
‘You’d show anything!’ Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter details…
Now 49, she has recalled that horrific October day in 1999 to presenter Aled Jones as she appears on a new BBC show called Going Back Giving Back, which will be broadcast today on the 17th anniversary of the crash.
Pam returns to the scene of the crash in Ladbroke Grove with presenter Aled Jones on TV show Going Back Giving Back and admits her brain has blocked out the distressing images she saw that day
On the programme, Pam returns to the scene of the collision in London’s Ladbroke Grove but she admits, despite seeing the full aftermath of the crash, she has no memory of it.
She recalled: ‘The fuel erupted from the engine and came through the carriage I was on. I was so badly burned I should have been the 32nd victim.
‘I was badly injured, I didn’t realise how badly at the time. I was conscious and the only way they could get me out was to hoist me from a chair up over an embankment above the tracks.
‘When I reached the top I had whole view of the scene below but my brain went into survival mode. It must have thought “you have enough to take in, don’t take this in” so it didn’t.’
Pam was so badly burned she had lost all the layers of her skin from her legs, hands and from her top lip upwards.
Pam tells Aled Jones it has been a long road to recovery but she now feels positive for the future and wants to give back to show the people who helped her that she is ‘doing something worthwhile with the life they helped save’
She was in a coma for three weeks and at times doctors were concerned she wouldn’t survive.
When she pulled through, she had skin grafts and had to wear a plastic mask for 23 hours a day for 18 months to help her face recover.
This led to her being nicknamed by the press as ‘the Lady In The Mask’ as she became actively involved in the investigation into why the disaster happened.
‘The Lady In The Mask is still my moniker,’ she said. ‘It took me back when the media picked up on the mask but I am still really grateful to it and I have it at home, it is like an old friend.’
Pam admits that while her physical wounds healed within years, her psychological ones were prolonged.
Pam pictured before the crash, which took place when she was on her way to a course aged 32. Layers of skin were burnt over Pam’s face, right, as well as her hands and legs
She suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and became depressed and full of self-loathing for her new appearance.
‘The physical injuries heal but the psychological side really caught me out,’ she admits.
‘I wouldn’t allow myself to acknowledge the trauma of what happened – it took ten years till I felt like a normal human being again.’
Pam has seen psychologists to help her and she had learnt techniques to battle her demons, which she utilises whenever she now has to travel by train.
She said she was determined to carry on using the mode of transport as part of her recovery.
She said: ‘When I first started using the train again, that first journey I gritted my teeth and did it. I had to run to the loo and throw up but I did it.
‘There was a sense of elation when I got to my meeting and could relax.’
Pam said she hit rock bottom during her recovery from the crash but she came out the other side thanks to the medical professionals and friends and family who supported her.
Now she wants to do everything she can to repay them by living her life to the full and helping other people who may have been through a traumatic experience or suffered life-changing injuries.
‘Once I sat down and counted everyone who has helped me and it came to 127 people,’ she said.
‘I think helping others now is a way for me to show them I am doing something worthwhile with the life they helped save.
‘I always think how lucky I am. This is my second life, my post crash life.
Pam with Aled and car crash survivor Phyllida Swift, right, who she wants to help to learn to live with her facial disfigurement based on her experience
‘When you are tested by an incident that makes you re-evaluate everything in life and it puts you to the test and tries to break you, that is when you discover you can do more than you thought.’
Pam founded the Paddington Survivors Group to bring those affected by the crash together so they could support one another and move on with their lives.
She has changed career and is now a motivational speaker as well as a spokesperson and advocate for railway safety.
On the BBC show, she agrees to become a mentor to Phyllida Swift, a young woman facially disfigured by a car crash.
She added these roles are a way of her giving back and giving hope to others who have been through a traumatic experience.
She said: ‘It is a way of me saying thank you to whatever powers there are out there to saving me and making sure I am still here to do this for someone else.’
While she moves forward, she said she doesn’t dwell on the past or what happened to her, except to pause every 5 October to remember the 31 who shared her journey into London 17 years ago but didn’t make it to their destination.
Going Back, Giving Back is on BBC1 weekdays at 3.45pm