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T I knew I was about to die occurred in my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My dearest friend, Helen, and I were on our way to Blackburn to catch up with an old university friend who had made a new home there for work. Thrilled to see each other, and basking in the prospect of the upcoming weekend of fun, we talked incessantly as we journeyed by train from York.

We placed our luggage – packed with necessities such as bottles of wine and my brand-new black clogs – above our heads and settled down in a snug pair of seats. Roughly halfway through our journey, I was faintly cognizant of a bang. Then came another, now unmistakable. Someone cried out as our carriage was lifted off the tracks in what felt like a dreamlike pace. Suddenly, Helen and I were somehow on our feet in the middle of the aisle, hugging each other. Head down, vision blocked, I waited for the carriage to overturn and ignite, like in the movies. My thoughts turned to our loved ones receiving the notification. That's when the sound of the little girl crying.

“Everything is okay,” I murmured, speaking with a rasp. “It’s all over,” I murmured, primarily to calm my own nerves.

She was about seven or eight years old, and seemed to be entirely alone. Her sobbing snapped me back to reality; now I could do something meaningful. I moved to where she was standing and put my arm around her. “Avoid looking back,” Helen called out, the warning came after the fact. I glimpsed a man with blood all over his face. An enormous piece of metal had smashed through the window behind us. Later, we found out a runaway digger had descended the slope and into the side of the train, leading to the derailment.

Our compartment was trapped with its front end in the air. Following that came of sirens and a fellow passenger asked me to hand the child over so he could assist her exit through the opening, while young passengers were extracted to waiting firefighters. Not long afterward, Helen and I were also climbing out of the train window and scaling a ladder down down to the rails.

Once back on solid ground – adjacent to a storage building in Pudsey – uncontrollable shivers took over. I searched for the little girl and observed her being embraced by her mother, who it turned out had been in the lavatory at the time of the accident. An emergency worker helpfully fetched my clogs. A fellow passenger sat down heavily on Helen’s case, making it split apart – but, by good fortune our wine was unharmed. Once we had waited for thirty minutes, we traveled in a provided car to Blackburn, accompanied by a young man and the female passenger who had caused the luggage to burst. Our friend was waiting, ashen-faced. She was aware there had been a derailment and a railway official had escorted her to an office and offered her a hot drink while she anticipated updates.

With the invincibility of youth, we set the accident aside and proceeded with the social outing, which included a notable act by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. There were no fatalities in the incident, even though several people were transported to the hospital. Helen and I escaped with bruises and general soreness from the force of the sudden jolt in the carriage. Our speed had been decreasing to come into Leeds station, which had been the key factor in avoiding serious injury. Given that nobody was badly hurt allowed us not to obsess over the “what ifs” but that young girl who changed my outlook profoundly. Taking care of her and soothing her shifted my focus outward and demonstrated the value of looking outwards in a crisis. In the decades since, I have frequently pondered if she had any memory of the event, and how big a deal it had been for her.

Helen and I have remained friends for over 30 years and "Pudsey" is now our code word for our ability to cope with anything, so long as we are together. Having her companionship during the accident made it feel as if I was insulated from the most terrifying aspects. The derailment further transformed my method of handling various difficult situations, giving me perspective – and reminding me that, no matter how dire circumstances appear, it is always a privilege to age.