A teenager whose heart stopped for seven minutes after falling on the Weymouth-Waterloo line is sharing her story to warn others of the potentially devastating consequences of trespassing on the railway.

Tegan Stapleton, then 16, was visiting Bournemouth the day after her secondary school prom a year ago when she ran across the tracks at the station station to get to her friend on the opposite platform and fell onto the live electrical conductor rail.

The electricity passed through her left arm, crossed her heart and went through her right arm. She suffered a cardiac arrest, third-degree burns over 10 per cent of her body and her heart stopped beating for seven minutes.

South Western Railway station staff pulled Tegan away from the tracks and resuscitated her on the platform.

Tegan spent five months in hospital and is facing further surgery.

Tegan said: "I want to get the message out there that the dangers on the railway aren't always obvious, like the conductor rail and trip hazards. I want people to learn from my mistake.”

Tegan is now planning to study psychology at college and hopes to turn her ordeal into a positive by using her experience to help people who have suffered severe burns.

Her mum Sasha Mullings said: “She’s definitely lucky to still be here. That day will never leave my mind. She was in an induced coma and was in and out of surgery- we didn’t know what kind of lifelong injuries she would have. She had to learn how to walk again, how to eat, she couldn’t really talk and she had to learn how to do everything with her left hand.

“It doesn’t just impact you. One small thought could save the pain that you can put yourself and your family through.”

Network Rail’s Wessex route, which includes Dorset, has a dedicated community safety team who have delivered rail safety sessions to more than 30,000 young people in the last year across the region.

David Smith, director of safety for Network Rail’s Wessex route, said: “I’d like to commend Tegan and Sasha for their bravery in working with us to share their story and raise awareness of the dangers present on the railway just one year on from this incident."

Network Rail, the British Transport Police and the wider rail industry are working together to raise awareness of the dangers of trespassing on the railway as part of the You vs Train campaign.