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That instant I realized the end was near occurred in my 20s, at a time when everything was beginning. My dearest friend, Helen, and I were on our way to Blackburn to visit a former classmate who had made a new home there for work. Delighted to be together, and enjoying the thought of the social gathering to come, we conversed constantly as we traveled by train from York.

We placed our luggage – packed with necessities such as wine bottles and the clogs I had just bought – above our heads and got seated in a comfortable double seat. Approximately 50 minutes after starting our journey, I was vaguely conscious of a bang. This was followed by a second, which could not be dismissed. A woman screamed as our carriage was lifted off the tracks in what felt like a delayed sequence. All at once, Helen and I were standing up in the middle of the aisle, holding each other tight. Head down, eyes screwed shut, I waited for the carriage to roll over and burst into flames, like in the movies. My thoughts turned to our families and friends hearing the tragic update. That's when the sound of the young girl weeping.

“It's going to be fine,” I whispered, speaking with a rasp. “The worst has passed,” I stated, primarily to calm my own nerves.

She was about seven or eight years old, and looked like she had no guardian. Her crying shook me out of my trance; now I could do something meaningful. I went to where she was standing and wrapped an arm around her. “Avoid looking back,” Helen called out, the warning came after the fact. I saw a man with his face covered in blood. An enormous piece of metal had crashed through the window behind us. Afterward, we discovered a runaway digger had rolled down the hill and collided with the train, causing us to derail.

Our car was lodged with its nose pointing upward. Next was the sound of sirens and another traveler 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. Not long afterward, Helen and I were similarly exiting of the train window and scaling a ladder down on to the track.

Standing on firm land again – adjacent to a storage building in Pudsey – my body started to shake uncontrollably. I looked for the little girl and observed her being embraced by her mother, who it turned out had been in the toilet at the time of the accident. A firefighter kindly retrieved my clogs. One of the passengers sat down heavily on Helen’s case, resulting in it breaking open – though luckily our wine remained intact. Following a 30-minute delay, we proceeded in a complimentary taxi to Blackburn, accompanied by a young man and the woman who had broken Helen’s case. Our friend was waiting, visibly shaken. She had heard 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.

Displaying the fearlessness of young adulthood, we put the train crash to one side and continued with our evening plans, which included a unforgettable performance by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. Not a single life was lost in the incident, despite the fact that several people required hospital treatment. Helen and I escaped with bruises and general soreness from the violent forward motion in the carriage. The train had been slowing to enter Leeds station, which had been the key factor in avoiding serious injury. Since nobody was badly hurt made it easier not to dwell on the “what ifs” but it was the little girl who made a permanent impression. Attending to her and reassuring her helped take my mind off myself and showed me the value of looking outwards in a crisis. In the decades since, I have repeatedly asked myself if she remembered anything about it, and how big a deal it had been for her.

Helen and I have now been friends for more than three decades and That location's name now symbolizes 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 accident additionally altered the way I approach various difficult situations, giving me perspective – and serving as a reminder that, no matter how dire circumstances appear, it is invariably an honor to get older.