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That instant I realized I was about to die came a couple of years into my 20s, as my adult life was unfolding. My dearest friend, Helen, and I were traveling to Blackburn to reunite with an old university friend who had recently moved there for work. Delighted to be together, and basking in the prospect of the party weekend ahead, we talked incessantly as we journeyed by train from York.

We placed our luggage – full of essentials such as bottles of wine and my brand-new black clogs – in the storage compartment and made ourselves comfortable in a cosy two-seater. Approximately 50 minutes after starting our journey, I was dimly aware of a bang. Then came another, now unmistakable. A female passenger shrieked as our carriage catapulted upward in what felt like a delayed sequence. In an instant, Helen and I were somehow on our feet in the middle of the aisle, holding each other tight. Head down, eyes screwed shut, I anticipated the carriage to flip and explode, similar to cinematic scenes. My thoughts turned to our families and friends receiving the notification. That's when the sound of the young girl weeping.

“Everything is okay,” I murmured, my voice sounding croaky. “It's finished now,” I whispered, primarily to calm my own nerves.

She appeared to be seven or eight, and looked like she had no guardian. Her weeping jolted me from my stupor; now I could do something meaningful. I moved to where she was standing and wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t look round,” Helen shouted, the warning came after the fact. I glimpsed a man with his face covered in blood. A large metallic item had crashed through the window behind us. Subsequently, we discovered a driverless construction vehicle had descended the slope and collided with 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 requested that I to give the girl to him so he could pass her through the window, while young passengers were extracted to fire crews on standby. Shortly after, Helen and I were likewise scrambling out of the train window and descending via a ladder onto the railway line.

Once back on solid ground – next to a goods shed in Pudsey – my body started to shake uncontrollably. I looked for the little girl and observed her being embraced by her mother, as it transpired had been in the toilet during the incident. An emergency worker helpfully fetched my clogs. One of the passengers plonked down on Helen’s case, making it split apart – though luckily our wine was unharmed. Once we had waited for thirty minutes, we traveled in a free cab to Blackburn, alongside an adolescent and the woman who had caused the luggage to burst. Our university friend greeted us, ashen-faced. She was aware there had been a derailment and a staff member had led her away and prepared some tea for her while she waited for news.

With the invincibility of youth, we pushed the derailment from our minds and proceeded with the social outing, which featured a memorable turn by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. Not a single life was lost in the incident, although several people required hospital treatment. Helen and I sustained only bruises and soreness and discomfort from the impact of being thrown forward in the carriage. The locomotive was decelerating to enter Leeds station, which had been the crucial element in avoiding serious injury. Given that nobody was badly hurt made it easier not to obsess over the “what ifs” but the child was the one who changed my outlook profoundly. Looking after her and soothing her helped take my mind off myself and taught me the worth of looking outwards in a crisis. In the decades since, I have repeatedly asked myself if she recalled any details, and what a major event it had been for her.

Helen and I have now been friends for thirty-plus years and That location's name now symbolizes for our capacity to handle whatever comes, provided we have each other. Her presence that fateful day gave me the impression I was protected from the worst of the situation. The crash also changed the way I approach different emergencies, offering me a new viewpoint – and reinforcing the idea that, regardless of how terrible things look, it remains a gift to get older.