A young Indian woman in Australia whose baby’s pram was hit by a train after rolling down from a platform, has said finding the six-month-old alive and hearing him cry was like a “religious experience”.

Saurish Verma escaped the terrifying ordeal and was left with just scratches to the left side of his face when the pram toppled from platform at Ashburton station in Victoria on October 15. The incident was captured on CCTV and flashed in Internet and news stations across the world.

Recalling her journey from “excruciating pain” to “overwhelming feeling of relief”, 29-year-old mom Shweta Verma last night told a TV channel that she took her hand off the pram for only a second before it rolled off.

“In front of my eyes, it was... I thought I’d lost my child, whom I love more than anyone or anything else... but then the next moment all I could think was how to find him and see how he was,” a tearful Verma said.

Shocked witnesses watched as the train slammed into the pram at 35km/hr, shunting it 30 metres as the driver tried frantically to stop. An 18-year-old fellow passenger crawled under the train to recover Saurish.

Verma said: “The first feeling was, ‘My baby is alive!’ It was the most incredible moment I have ever experienced... I would equate it to having been in excruciating pain and shock, and suddenly being washed with an overwhelming feeling of relief. He was still crying... He seemed to know, ‘I’m OK now, I’m in my mother’s arms’ ”.

... contd.