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T it dawned on me my life was in danger occurred in my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My closest companion, 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 reveling in the anticipation of the social gathering to come, we talked incessantly as we traveled by train from York.

We placed our luggage – packed with necessities such as bottles of wine and the clogs I had just bought – on the overhead rack and made ourselves comfortable in a snug pair of seats. Approximately 50 minutes after starting our journey, I was dimly aware of a bang. Then came another, this time impossible to ignore. A woman screamed as our carriage was lifted off the tracks in what felt like a delayed sequence. Suddenly, 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 roll over and burst into flames, like in the movies. I recall pondering our families and friends receiving the notification. Subsequently, there was the little girl crying.

“Everything is okay,” I said softly, my tone was hoarse. “It’s all over,” I whispered, mostly for my own benefit.

She appeared to be seven or eight, and looked like she had no guardian. Her crying shook me out of my trance; here was my chance to help. I made my way to where she was standing and wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t look round,” Helen shouted, too late. I glimpsed a man whose face was bloody. An enormous piece of metal had penetrated the window behind us. Subsequently, we discovered a driverless construction vehicle had descended the slope and into the side of the train, causing us to derail.

Our car was lodged with its front end in the air. Next was the sound of sirens and a man nearby asked me to pass the little girl to him so he could help her out the window, where children were being evacuated to waiting firefighters. Shortly after, Helen and I were also climbing out of the train window and scaling a ladder down onto the railway line.

Once back on solid ground – adjacent to a storage building in Pudsey – uncontrollable shivers took over. I looked for the little girl and saw her being scooped up by her mum, who it turned out had been in the toilet during the incident. A firefighter kindly retrieved my clogs. A fellow passenger plonked down on Helen’s case, resulting in it breaking open – but, by good fortune our wine was unharmed. After a half-hour wait, we traveled in a free cab to Blackburn, accompanied by a young man and the woman who had caused the luggage to burst. Our friend was waiting, ashen-faced. She was aware 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.

With the invincibility of youth, we pushed the derailment from our minds and proceeded with the social outing, which involved 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 violent forward motion in the carriage. The train had been slowing to come into Leeds station, which had been the crucial element in averting grave physical damage. Given that nobody was badly hurt made it easier not to dwell on the “what ifs” but the child was the one who made a permanent impression. Attending to her and soothing her distracted me from my own fear and taught me the worth of looking outwards in a crisis. As time passed, I have frequently pondered if she had any memory of the event, and what a major event it had been for her.

Helen and I have now been friends for more than three decades and Pudsey has become shorthand for our skill in managing with anything, provided we have each other. Being with her that day gave me the impression I was protected from the full horror of the event. The crash also changed my method of handling other types of crises, giving me perspective – and serving as a reminder that, regardless of how terrible things look, it is invariably an honor to grow older.