Double amputee climbs Mount Kilimanjaro

Ms de Lagarde said she started seriously thinking about the climb six or seven months ago.

But the idea was first suggested straight after the Tube accident.

She said: “Because I’d just climbed Kilimanjaro, a lot of people when they came to see me in hospital, friends, family, my lovely colleagues, they all said: ‘You know what? One day you’ll climb Kilimanjaro again.’

“Once I got into rehab, there was something about that mountain that was inspiring me.”

She added that her mother gave her a painting of the volcano to use as “inspiration to get out of bed”.

“You become so vulnerable when you can’t walk,” Ms de Lagarde said. “I can’t zip up my own dress, I can’t put my earrings in, I can’t shower by myself.

“Everything is just really really difficult… that’s my day to day.”

She added that her children had had “to grow up quickly”.

“I used to zip up my daughters’ jackets, now they zip up mine,” she said.