Josimar Medina woke a little before 9am on Wednesday to find himself airborne and hurtling through his carriage on the fast train from Madrid to Seville.

“I remember flying through the air and looking for my girlfriend, who was also shooting through the air,” said Medina, a 37-year-old tourist from the northern Peruvian city of Chiclayo.

Once he landed, he looked around and realised just how lucky he and his girlfriend, Vitoria Maia, had been.

“I saw people with cuts, people covered in blood, people missing limbs, and I saw one person who had nothing left below the chest,” said Medina. “I saw people with their heads crushed and people with mutilated arms.”

Josimar Medina and his girlfriend Vitoria Maia, from Peru and Brazil respectively, were thrown across their carriage of the fast train from Madrid to Seville after it collided with another train on the track.…