A young doctor who cheated death in Andalucia’s deadly Adamuz train crash is finally home, but says her battle is far from over.

Amalia Montealegre, 31, from Talavera, was one of the very few survivors pulled from carriage two of the Alvia disaster on January 18 that killed 46 people.

She was the last to be rescued, pinned in the wreckage for four terrifying hours.

This week, she was finally discharged from a Huelva hospital after weeks of treatment, including time in intensive care in Cordoba.

But despite surviving the unimaginable, she says the system is now failing her when she needs help the most.

Still unable to walk and in constant pain, Amalia is urgently asking for a reduced mobility card so she can cope with daily life. She says she’s been told she may have to wait up to a year.

‘I need it now, when I can’t walk and I’m at my worst in a wheelchair,’ she said, explaining that even sitting for short periods causes severe pain in her lower back.

The young medic arrived at hospital in a critical state and doctors weren’t even sure she would survive surgery.

‘They didn’t know if I’d make it out of the operating theatre,’ she revealed.

Despite that, she speaks warmly about the staff who cared for her, saying nurses, assistants and porters treated her ‘like family’ during her ordeal.

But outside the hospital walls, frustration has taken over. She says she has contacted Huelva City Council without success, while dealing with insurance has become a daily struggle.

‘The last thing you want when you’re lying in a hospital bed is to be fighting with an insurance company just to get rehab sessions,’ she said.

For months, Amalia was cut off from the outside world. She only recently started using her phone again and avoided the news entirely, instead passing time watching TV shows and documentaries.

Her family has been her lifeline. Living alone in Huelva, she relied on her mother, aunt and uncle, who took turns travelling from Talavera to care for her. Her mother even took unpaid leave from work to stay by her side.

In the chaotic hours after the crash, her loved ones feared the worst. Emergency phone lines set up to provide information failed, leaving them in the dark.

It was only when Amalia, lying in an ambulance, asked a doctor if she could call her mother that her family learned she was alive.

‘I was able to tell her: I’m alive,’ she recalled.

Now comes the long road back as she still faces two more operations and more than a year of recovery. For now, she cannot walk and will need to wear a brace for months.

Independent since her teens, she admits the hardest part is losing that freedom.

‘My mum is moving in with me,’ she said. ‘In the end, the toughest thing is losing your independence and your privacy.’

Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.