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The moment it dawned on me my life was in danger arrived during my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My best friend, Helen, and I were traveling 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 chatted nonstop as we journeyed by train from York.

We stashed our bags – packed with necessities such as bottles of wine and my brand-new black clogs – in the storage compartment and made ourselves comfortable in a comfortable double seat. Roughly halfway through our journey, I was vaguely conscious of a bang. Then came another, which could not be dismissed. A female passenger shrieked as our carriage was lifted off the tracks in what felt like a dreamlike pace. In an instant, Helen and I were upright in the middle of the aisle, clinging to one another. Head down, eyelids tightly closed, I waited for the carriage to overturn and ignite, like in the movies. I recall pondering our relatives and companions getting the news. That's when the sound of the child sobbing.

“Everything is okay,” I murmured, my tone was hoarse. “It's finished now,” I stated, mostly for my own benefit.

She was about seven or eight years old, and looked like she had no guardian. Her crying shook me out of my trance; this was my opportunity to be useful. I made my way to where she was standing and put my arm around her. “Avoid looking back,” Helen called out, but it was already too late. I caught sight of a man with his face covered in blood. A large metallic item had crashed through the window behind us. Later, we found out a runaway digger had rolled down the hill and smashed into our carriage, leading to the derailment.

Our car was lodged with its leading section elevated. Following that came of sirens and a man nearby asked me to give the girl to him so he could help her out the window, while young passengers were extracted to emergency personnel below. Not long afterward, Helen and I were also climbing out of the train window and descending via a ladder down to the rails.

Once back on solid ground – beside a freight warehouse in Pudsey – my body started to shake uncontrollably. 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. A rescuer graciously recovered my clogs. One of the passengers collapsed on Helen’s case, resulting in it breaking open – but, by good fortune our wine remained intact. Once we had waited for thirty minutes, we proceeded in a provided car to Blackburn, alongside an adolescent and the lady who had broken Helen’s case. Our host was there, ashen-faced. She knew there had been a derailment and a railway official had escorted her to an office and offered her a hot drink while she hoped for information.

Bolstered by youthful resilience, we pushed the derailment from our minds and carried on with our night out, which involved a memorable turn by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. No one died in the incident, although several people were transported to the hospital. Helen and I escaped with bruises and aches and pains from the violent forward motion in the carriage. The locomotive was decelerating to come into Leeds station, which had been the key factor in averting grave physical damage. The fact that nobody was badly hurt helped not to focus on the “what ifs” but that young girl who left a lasting impact on me. Attending to her and calming her down shifted my focus outward and taught me the value of looking outwards in a crisis. As time passed, I have repeatedly asked myself if she had any memory of the event, and how significant it had been for her.

Helen and I have stayed close for more than three decades and "Pudsey" is now our code word for our skill in managing with anything, so long as we are together. Having her companionship during the accident gave me the impression I was shielded against the most terrifying aspects. The derailment further transformed my perspective on other types of crises, giving me perspective – and serving as a reminder that, however bad things seem, it is invariably an honor to get older.