I Was Run Over by a Train

How would you feel if you had to lose your legs to save your life?

What would you risk to give your children a safe home and a better future?

What if the only solution was to take El tren de la muerte - the Death train?

These were the choices which faced Lurvy, a woman in her forties living in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Faced with anarchy, and the violent youth gangs which were destroying her street-side food stall with their demands for protection money, Lurvy could see no other option but to brave the journey alone on this dangerous cargo train to Monterrey, Mexico. There she hoped to join her siblngs, apply for amnesty and bring her children.

After three days, crouching day and night on this crowded train's platforms, and desperate not to be apprehended by La Migra - the Immigration police - Lurvy jumped another more dangerous moving train, and fell. When she awoke in hospital, both her legs had been amputated.

Three months into recovery with Medicines Sans Frontieres, Lurvy's husband died in an accident.

Now in the care of the International Red Cross, Lurvy cannot walk. She needs prosthetics for her damaged legs so as to be able to seek work and support her family.

She still aims to reach Monterrey.

If you have been moved by the story of this "wonderful woman" - the words of Michael Segalov, the journalist who first broke her story in the Guardian Weekend - please donate whatever you can afford to help her finish her journey, and gain the peaceful, safe life for her family for which she has hazarded and suffered so much.