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A woman and her husband have described their “desperate” struggle to free a fellow tube passenger who got her neck trapped between the train doors.

Ruth Rubin and her husband Elad were travelling home from Shakespeare's Globe theatre late on Tuesday night when a woman “aged in her 40s or 50s” became stuck in the doors of the Northern Line train.

Mrs Rubin said the doors did not bounce open as expected and “10-15 men” jumped up to try and pry them open.

Mr Rubin said the woman, who appeared to be with a male friend, “was not yelling” but was “whimpering ‘help me, help me.’"

The couple said they were disappointed by the response from the tube driver, who they said took too long to respond and did not check on the woman once she was freed.

Mrs Rubin said she was already on the tube with her husband when the woman “rushed on to the carriage” before getting jammed in the door as they closed.

“I called to the rest of the carriage, it was one of those situations where you go into action mode”, Mrs Rubin told the Standard.

“It’s one of the most desperate situations I have ever witnessed.”

She added that she is not sure how the woman came to be facing with her head outside of the train carriage and believes she may have turned to a friend before getting stuck.

Mr Rubin said he jumped from his seat to help and managed to get his leg between the doors and “use all his body weight” to push against them.

“She couldn’t get out but the pressure on her neck was relieved,” he said.

When the doors did not bounce back open, Mr Rubin said other passengers pulled the emergency handles inside the tube.

“The doors were beeping,” Mr Rubin said. “It felt like the driver was trying to close the doors”.

“I’m somewhat disappointed with the behaviour of the driver,” he said. “I find it hard to believe he couldn’t see in his mirror or camera that something was wrong.”

He added that while there was not a sense of panic, passengers were initially worried the train would start moving from the platform into the tunnel while the woman’s head was still outside the carriage.

“At some point we realised that the train was not going to go,” he said.

“Someone on the platform was soothing the woman saying help was on its way.”

He said the driver eventually released the doors and came around to disarm one of the emergency alarms, while the woman, who he believes was not physically injured "besides being traumatised", was helped by a fellow passenger.

Mr and Mrs Rubin say they are not sure how long the woman was stuck because “every second felt like an hour”. She said it could have been “90 or 120 seconds”.

The couple said they did not want to release exact details of the time and place of the incident in case it identified the driver.

Mr Rubin said that someone who could have been a “train dispatcher” came onto the platform shortly after the woman was released to disable the rest of the alarms.

He said the train left the platform a few minutes later.

A Transport for London spokeswoman told the Standard: “We recognise that this must have been a very frightening experience for everyone involved.

"The safety of customers and staff is always our number one priority and we will look into all the circumstances surrounding this particular incident.”