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The moment I realized my life was in danger came a couple of years into my 20s, as my adult life was unfolding. My best friend, Helen, and I were on our way to Blackburn to catch up with a former classmate who had made a new home there for work. Delighted to be together, and enjoying the thought of the upcoming weekend of fun, we talked incessantly as we traveled by train from York.

We put our suitcases – full of essentials such as bottles of wine and my brand-new black clogs – on the overhead rack and got seated in a snug pair of seats. Approximately 50 minutes after starting our journey, I was dimly aware of a bang. Another one sounded, which could not be dismissed. A woman screamed as our carriage was lifted off the tracks in what felt like a dreamlike pace. Suddenly, Helen and I were upright in the middle of the aisle, clinging to one another. Head down, vision blocked, I waited for the carriage to flip and explode, like in the movies. I remember thinking our relatives and companions getting the news. That's when the sound of the little girl crying.

“It's going to be fine,” I said softly, my tone was hoarse. “It's finished now,” I stated, mostly for my own benefit.

Her age was roughly seven or eight, 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 gave her a reassuring hug. “Don't turn around,” Helen called out, but it was already too late. I glimpsed a man with blood all over his face. A huge metal object had penetrated the window behind us. Subsequently, we discovered a driverless construction vehicle had rolled down the hill and into the side of the train, causing us to derail.

Our carriage was stuck with its front end in the air. Next was the sound of sirens and another traveler asked me to hand the child over so he could help her out the window, while young passengers were extracted to waiting firefighters. A few minutes later, Helen and I were similarly exiting of the train window and scaling a ladder down onto the railway line.

Standing on firm land again – adjacent to a storage building in Pudsey – my body started to shake uncontrollably. My eyes scanned for the little girl and observed her being embraced by her mother, who it turned out had been using the restroom at the time of the accident. A firefighter kindly retrieved my clogs. One of the passengers collapsed on Helen’s case, resulting in it breaking open – but, by good fortune our wine stayed unbroken. Once we had waited for thirty minutes, we traveled in a provided car to Blackburn, accompanied by a young man and the lady who had broken Helen’s case. Our friend was waiting, visibly shaken. She knew there had been a derailment and a guard had taken her into his office and made her a cup of tea while she hoped for information.

Bolstered by youthful resilience, we set the accident aside and continued with our evening plans, which included a notable act by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. Not a single life was lost in the incident, even though several people required hospital treatment. Helen and I got away with bruises and aches and pains from the force of the sudden jolt in the carriage. The train had been slowing to come into Leeds station, which had been the crucial element in preventing major harm. Since nobody was badly hurt helped not to dwell on the “what ifs” but that young girl who changed my outlook profoundly. Looking after her and calming her down helped take my mind off myself and demonstrated the worth of focusing on others 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 now been friends for thirty-plus years and "Pudsey" is now our code word for our capacity to handle with anything, so long as we are together. Her presence that fateful day gave me the impression I was protected from the full horror of the event. The crash also changed my perspective on various difficult situations, offering me a new viewpoint – and serving as a reminder that, however bad things seem, it is invariably an honor to get older.