Caught on camera: A doctor's miracle escape after she was pushed under a train by a deluded stranger

A doctor escaped death by inches after she was pushed in front of a train by a crazed stranger on an all-day drinking binge.

Shuet Neong, 24, survived because she slipped between the rails as the passenger train thundered over her.

A judge said it was a 'miracle' she was not killed by David Arnold, who moments earlier had tried to assault a man with a claw hammer.

Arnold, a 39-year-old council caretaker, told police he had pushed Dr Neong on to the tracks to show he could do something 'really serious' after a fight with a colleague.

He was yesterday detained indefinitely for psychiatric treatment after the Old Bailey heard he suffered from a delusional disorder.

He had pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm.

The court heard Dr Neong missed the 750- volt electrified rail by inches and was then trapped as one-and-a-half carriages of the passenger train passed over her at 20mph.

After it had stopped commuters heard her screaming and crying and leapt down to pull her to safety.

David Arnold (circled in yellow) stands behind a Dr Shuet Neong (circled in red) just moments before pushing her under a train

Her collarbone was broken and she was left with multiple cuts and bruises to her face and body.

Arnold fled the scene but later that night walked into Plumstead police station in South-East London and told officers: 'I have pushed someone under a train.'

Oliver Glasgow, prosecuting, said: 'He told the officers he didn't think he was capable of doing something like that and he didn't know why he'd done it and that he was delusional  -  it was something he wasn't in control of.

Dr Neong lies on the track as the train approaches

'He told the community psychiatric team that earlier in the evening he had taken a claw hammer and had gone out and tried to attack a man he's seen at a bus stop, but having swung, the man ducked and had rushed off.'

Arnold, from Greenwich, South-East London, had been drinking all afternoon with colleagues on October 19 last year and became involved in a fight with another council worker.

Mr Glasgow said he was 'rambling, emotional and so drunk he could not walk without stumbling' when he left the Old Mill pub in nearby Plumstead.

He went to a friend's house and then walked to the rail station at Woolwich Arsenal, where Malaysianborn Dr Neong was waiting for a train home after work.

David Arnold calmly walks away after pushing his victim onto the tracks

CCTV images show Arnold lurking in the shadows behind the junior casualty doctor.

Mr Glasgow said: 'As her train pulled into the platform a man stepped from behind her and pushed her into its path.

'The driver was unable to stop before he reached her and the train passed over the top of her.'

Mr Glasgow said that Dr Neong was finding it difficult to work after her ordeal. Judge Christopher Moss ordered that Arnold be treated at the secure Bracton Clinic in South London until the Home Secretary ruled it was safe to release him.

The 24-year-old doctor was pushed on the tracks while waiting at Woolwich Arsenal Station

He told Arnold: 'You selected your victim and, in choosing your moment precisely, you deliberately pushed her into the path of a moving train.

'It is a miracle that Dr Neong was not killed.'

>Arnold was not thought to have been previously diagnosed with a mental illness and was not in psychiatric care before the attack.

The judge praised the bravery of train driver Patrick Robinson and commuter Kevin Jobbins, who came to Dr Neong's aid.