Rail passengers wrenched open a set of train doors this morning after they closed and trapped an older lady with a walking stick.

Yoga teacher Ros Southward, of the Hitchin Rail Commuters group, told the Comet she had just got off the Peterborough-to-Horsham Thameslink service at London St Pancras when she saw the woman get trapped in the doors.

“There was a guy who was helping an elderly lady with a walking stick off the train,” she said.

“The trains are quite high from the platform at St Pancras, so she needed time to get off. The doors starting beeping and she was literally still getting off when the doors closed.

“I ran over to help and push the doors back open, because basically her arm and a bit of her torso were still stuck in there.

“We managed to open the doors and get her off and then the train pulled away. We just took her to sit down on the platform.

“I felt so bad for the lady. She was literally shaking as I was helping her to sit down. Two of the platform staff, who were further down the platform, had obviously seen what had happened and walked over. It was really shocking.

“What makes me laugh is the fact that there’s this whole hoo-ha about the trains needing to take longer because they’ve got to stop for X number of minutes for all the stations up the line like Hitchin, yet you’ve got a station like St Pancras where, obviously, it’s a London terminal – yet they’re not allowing adequate time. It’s insane.”

Ros has lodged a formal complaint with line operator Govia Thameslink about the incident, which happened at about 10.14am.

A Govia Thameslink spokesman told this paper: “We are sorry to hear about this and are investigating what happened.”