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The moment I realized I was about to die came a couple of years into my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My best friend, Helen, and I were headed to Blackburn to catch up with an old university friend who had made a new home there for work. Overjoyed at the reunion, and enjoying the thought of the party weekend ahead, we chatted nonstop as we traveled by train from York.

We stashed our bags – full of essentials such as wine bottles and the clogs I had just bought – in the storage compartment and settled down in a comfortable double seat. Roughly halfway through our journey, I was vaguely conscious of a bang. Then came another, this time impossible to ignore. A female passenger shrieked as our carriage was thrown up into the air in what felt like a delayed sequence. Suddenly, Helen and I were upright in the middle of the aisle, holding each other tight. With my head lowered, eyes screwed shut, I waited for the carriage to roll over and burst into flames, similar to cinematic scenes. My thoughts turned to our families and friends getting the news. That's when the sound of the young girl weeping.

“You’re all right,” I murmured, my voice sounding croaky. “The worst has passed,” I stated, mostly for my own benefit.

She was about seven or eight years old, and seemed to be entirely alone. Her weeping jolted me from my stupor; this was my opportunity to be useful. I went to where she was standing and put my arm around her. “Don’t look round,” Helen called out, but it was already too late. I caught sight of a man whose face was bloody. A large metallic item had penetrated the window behind us. Afterward, we discovered a runaway digger had tumbled down the embankment and smashed into our carriage, making the train leave the tracks.

Our compartment was trapped with its front end in the air. Next was the sound of sirens and a fellow passenger requested that I to hand the child over so he could help her out the window, while young passengers were extracted to emergency personnel below. Shortly after, Helen and I were similarly exiting of the train window and climbing down a ladder down to the rails.

Back on terra firma – adjacent to a storage building in Pudsey – my body started to shake uncontrollably. My eyes scanned for the little girl and watched her mother gather her up, we later learned 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 – though luckily our wine stayed unbroken. After a half-hour wait, we traveled in a complimentary taxi to Blackburn, alongside an adolescent and the lady who had caused the luggage to burst. Our friend was waiting, ashen-faced. She had heard there had been a derailment and a staff member had led her away and offered her a hot drink while she anticipated updates.

With the invincibility of youth, we set the accident aside and continued with our evening plans, which included a unforgettable performance by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. There were no fatalities in the incident, although several people required hospital treatment. Helen and I escaped with bruises and aches and pains from the impact of being thrown forward in the carriage. The locomotive was decelerating to enter Leeds station, which had been the primary reason in averting grave physical damage. Given that nobody was badly hurt helped not to dwell on the “what ifs” but the child was the one who changed my outlook profoundly. Attending to her and reassuring her shifted my focus outward and taught me the value of directing attention externally in a crisis. Over the years, I have frequently pondered if she recalled any details, and how significant it had been for her.

Helen and I have now been friends for over 30 years and Pudsey has become shorthand for our skill in managing any situation, as long as we're side by side. Being with her that day created the sensation that I was insulated from the full horror of the event. The derailment further transformed my method of handling other types of crises, offering me a new viewpoint – and reinforcing the idea that, however bad things seem, it remains a gift to age.