Alton Towers crash victim Leah Washington tells of phantom limb pain

Today, 18-year-old Leah joined Eamonn and Ruth on This Morning to discuss the horrific accident on The Smiler, which resulted in her having to have her leg amputated. My life is on hold while my friends are moving forward, having their own cars and leaving home. “I could never get comfortable because of the pain, and I still can’t now”.

She also described the agony of seeing her leg after the surgery, saying: “It took a while, but because it were all bandaged up anyway I couldn’t really see what it looked like”. At one moment, no pulse could be felt in her wrist despite the fact that her heart was racing- prompting fears that she could go into cardiac arrest.

Watch in the video player above as fearless Leah reflects on the day, which started out as a happy date with her boyfriend Joe Pugh. Leah was sitting next to Joe when the ride stopped 100ft in the air for 10 minutes – and then headed for disaster.

She said she still wasn’t anxious about getting on the ride again: “Not really, because all rides break down at some point – even big ones in America break down – you don’t expect anything bad to happen”.

Her leg was amputated immediately when she was taken to hospital and she remembers waking up afterwards.

“I saw the other cart stuck on the track ahead”.

In the interview with the Mail on Sunday, she said: “I looked down at my left leg and it was pushed up with the bar digging into it. There was a bit of flesh on the seat in front and I could feel the bone in my knee sticking out”. It wasn’t till she tried to wiggle her toes, she realised she couldn’t feel them. Joe was trying to calm me down.

She is now eager to get a prosthetic leg because crutches are tiring and she doesn’t like being in a wheelchair as people often stare.

Leah revealed she begged the surgeon not to tell her she had lost a limb.

“I’m not independent any more and I hate it”, says Leah.

Mr McFadyen also had to tell Leah, who started shouting: “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me”.

The teen said she does not feel anger towards the Staffordshire theme park, whose owner Merlin Entertainments has accepted responsibility for the crash, but added that she wants to know what went wrong so it does not happen again.

A Health and Safety Executive inquiry is ongoing and Leah has been awarded an interim compensation payout.

The incident took place in June where 16 people were injured after one the theme park’s attractions, the Smiler, malfunctioned.