Girl with severed arm up for gong

By Linda Serck
BBC Berkshire reporter

Kirsty Mason has been nominated in the Pride Of Reading Awards

It has been a year since Bracknell teenager Kirsty Mason lost her arm after fainting under a train.

Now the 19-year-old musician has been nominated for Employee Of The Year in the 2009 Pride of Reading awards, which takes place on Wednesday 9 November.

Boss Dean Gibson from Debenhams in Reading said that he is "really proud" with how Kirsty has coped after she was inches from death at Wokingham station.

Kirsty returned to work nine months after her accident.

'I wish the train had never turned up'

It was a normal day for Kirsty on Friday 7 November 2008.

"I was working in North Camp at the time and I was travelling from Bracknell so I'd get two trains every morning," she told BBC Berkshire.

"The second one was at Wokingham train station where I have about a 15 minute wait.

"During the time I was waiting I started feeling really hot, faint, dizzy and light-headed.

"I remember looking up to see whether the train was coming yet. I saw it just coming round the bend underneath the bridge and I thought 'thank God, I'll be alright'.

"Now I wish it never turned up."

She was standing on the platform because all the benches were wet from the rain. Despite feeling fine in the morning Kirsty began to feel faint after smoking a routine cigarette at the station.

"I remember feeling a bit hot to begin with, then really heavy, then my vision started going - it was one thing after another."

"It was horrific"

It was then that Kirsty fainted onto the tracks before the oncoming train, which had no time to stop. Ten wheels of the train severed her arm just above her right wrist.

"When I actually came round all I could see was metal everywhere and all these faces looking down through the train and the platform," Kirsty recalls.

"It was absolute panic, it was horrific. I didn't know what to think or what to do."

Kirsty spent an hour underneath the train as she had also broken her pelvis. "They couldn't just move the train and get me up," she said.

Doctors were unable to reattach her limb and Kirsty was fitted for a prosthetic arm. However, she leaves the arm in the cupboard and is awaiting an appointment to be fitted for another.

"It's a cosmetic arm so it doesn't actually have any functionality to it, it's purely for looks, but because it holds on around my elbow it doesn't feel very comfortable and it gives me an abnormally large-looking elbow."

Pride Of Reading 2009

The women's wear sales assistant impressed her bosses at Debenhams in the Oracle, who nominated her in the Employee Of The Year category at the Pride Of Reading 2009 awards.

Right-handed Kirsty returned to work after learning to perform everyday tasks such as cooking, dressing, washing, with her left hand.

A keen musician, she uses her arm to continue playing the guitar.

"She's a really positive person so it's a real pleasure," says Mr Gibson.

"How she's coped with all that she's had to deal with for the past year - we're really proud of her."

Kirsty said of the nomination: "It's very nerve-wracking!

"It's been a rollercoaster of a year, I've had a lot of ups and downs."