It was just the worst thing ever seen in my life.
He's on fire.
The smell of burning skin is horrific.
Why am I going to lose my friend?
Hubbard just lived for exploring.
He was willing to go on an adventure, sort of thing,
do something different.
He'd always be looking for the next thrill,
places we weren't meant to be, things we weren't meant to do.
He'd probably be the one that stayed up the latest
and stayed out the latest.
He was a bit of a monkey man,
he'd climb up anything.
We'd just finished school, we all finished our exams.
We were just kicking a ball about as we usually do.
We saw the train stop, it was just sat there for ages.
Hubbard was like, "Imagine if you climbed on it.
"Climbed on this building, climbed on that building,
"we ain't been on top of a train."
We knew what we were doing was wrong but we just thought,
"Let's do it, let's do it, let's do it.
"Quickly now, there's no-one around."
As he went up, he passed me his phone down...
Ooo-hoo!
ELECTRICAL BUZZING
MUFFLED: Hubbard!
I've worked for Network Rail for 15 years.
This was, by far, I'd say, the worst day of my career.
The flash just lights the sky up.
We knew straight away by the smoke and the smell
he'd received a massive electric shock.
Hubbard was hit with 25,000 volts
when the electricity jumped from an overhead cable.
That's a hundred times the power supply in your home.
A fire ball has set light to Hubbard's clothes
and it's burning into his skin.
ON PHONE: Quick, shall we go and get him? He's on top...
OPERATOR:
He's on fire.
Straight away, your heart's in your stomach and you feel sick.
You could see his hair burning,
his whole body was smouldering and smoking from head to toe.
It was just the worst thing I've ever seen in my life,
I just couldn't believe our mate, we might lose him, like.
We didn't think he had any chance.
Within a split second I saw red, fully red.
Adrenaline had overcome my body,
this cannot be real, like...
How am I still here, if it is real, sort of thing as well?
OPERATOR: Is he breathing and conscious?
Oh... I can't... Oh.
I just looked down and seen black.
My T-shirt had burnt off.
My skin was all black on my torso.
Instantly, I realised my left arm and left leg were both paralysed.
Within seconds my life had changed for ever.
The damage was done.
It was just a case of get him into survival mode now.
ON PHONE: He's trying to get down.
We said to him -
If you've been electrocuted,
stay still as you can until the power is turned off.
If you see it happen, don't approach.
If you get too close to the power source
you could cause another shock.
I think the shock was just sort of phasing me.
This hasn't happened, this is just not even happened.
Take this bit out of my head. It was almost bewildering.
OPERATOR: I know, I know, I know.
Just slow down and tell me exactly where you are.
Call for help straight away and make it easy for help to find you.
Don't leave it to chance.
The operator will need to alert whoever controls the power.
Only when the power's off, can the paramedics approach.
AMBULANCE SIREN WAILS
Until the emergency services arrived, it was just a case of
keep him talking to stop him going into shock.
Whenever he asked me how I am, I was like,
"I'm just freezing, man, I'm freezing.
"I've got no skin on me, I feel quite cold."
At one point he didn't answer me and then my heart really did sink then.
Hubbard's sister and mum, they came down.
His family is there in front of me and I'm just there like,
this is actually real.
They're crying, they're literally in tears, they're in bits,
everyone's in bits.
Don't you go to sleep.
I just seen his hand move and I was like, phew, he still alive.
SIREN WAILS
The Fire Department got me down and got me into an ambulance
and then it started hitting me, everything, really.
Just injections and everything. That's when I started zoning out.
I can remember the nurse coming in and everything and saying,
"Do you want to go and see him now
"because we've got him, he's sedated at the moment."
I didn't want to see him like that.
Let's say he didn't make it,
I wanted to remember the Hubbard being the person I remember
in school and everything, playing football with, that person.
That's all I wanted to remember him by.
I definitely think it was worse for my family than it was for me.
I was there on all these drugs, out of my head.
They didn't know if I'd ever wake up again.
I had so many open wounds,
if I'd had one little infection that would've just have been me gone.
When I woke up from the coma
the only movement I had was really my fingers.
I could squeeze a bit and that was it.
I was aware that life was never going to be the same again.
The electricity that shocked Hubbard passed through his left shoulder
and came out through his right foot,
causing devastating burns over 57% of his body.
An electric shock was like a bullet.
The hole that it goes in is actually smaller than where it
comes out, it's more of an explosion on the way out.
My right foot got a bit of a hole in it.
Recovering from a burns injury, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
The skin is the biggest organ on the body.
And trying to heal that, it's stupid amounts of pain.
They just take skin off my legs and put it on my body.
They were doing it that frequently my legs didn't have time to heal.
I remember my mum saying to me, "This is the worst of it,
"it's only going to get better from here."
Every day it was like, can it just not hurry up a bit?
But, yeah, I've learnt a lot about patience.
It is learning literally every single thing again,
like you're a newborn baby really.
I had to learn to breathe by myself, I had to learn to talk,
to learn to eat, to learn to walk.
I was just being cared for completely by other people.
I'm so proud of him, I can't believe that he's gone through all of that
and he's still here.
The accident made me realise how bad life could be.
I tell my friends and everyone to just appreciate the small things.
They can be, in a split second, taken away.