'Memories of the London bombings are as vivid as ever'

Survivor of the 7/7 bombings Martine Wright tells how she coped with the tragedy and rebuilt her life

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Martine Wright, from Tring, Hertfordshire, is regarded as the most injured female survivor of the 7/7 London bombings, which claimed the lives of 52 victims. This week marks 20 years since the attack, and now Martine is opening up about losing her legs in the blast, and tells us how she went on to become a Paralympian.

Martine, 52, was so badly injured, her siblings were unable to identify her in hospital. But the mum-of-one has come a long way since that catastrophic day, which will be etched in her memory forever.

7 July 2005 started out as a typical day for Martine, who lived and worked in London as a marketing manager. An avid sports fan, she had spent the previous night celebrating the announcement that London would host the 2012 Olympics. Waking with a bit of a sore head after the festivities, she hit the snooze button on her alarm and ended up catching a later Tube train than usual that morning.

But within minutes of taking her seat and opening her newspaper, a terrorist struck.

Talking us through that devastating day, Martine recalls, "I distinctly remember going into the tunnel at Liverpool Street and thinking about getting tickets for the Olympics when the explosion happened."

Big white flash

"I don’t remember the noise of the explosion, I just recall a big white flash in front of my eyes. It was weird that I had enough time to think, 'What the hell is going on?' I can’t believe I had enough time to think that in that nanosecond."

Martine initially thought the Tube train had crashed as she tried to get her bearings among the piercing screams, black smoke and wreckage around her. However, a bomb had exploded just four feet away from her in the first suicide attack on British soil.