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The moment I realized the end was near arrived during my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My best friend, Helen, and I were headed to Blackburn to catch up with a friend from college who had recently moved there for work. Overjoyed at the reunion, and enjoying the thought of the party weekend ahead, we conversed constantly as we traveled by train from York.

We put our suitcases – full of essentials such as bottles of wine and the clogs I had just bought – on the overhead rack and got seated in a comfortable double seat. Roughly halfway through our journey, I was faintly cognizant of a bang. Another one sounded, which could not be dismissed. A woman screamed 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, hugging each other. Looking down, eyelids tightly closed, I waited for the carriage to flip and explode, similar to cinematic scenes. My thoughts turned to our families and friends receiving the notification. Subsequently, there was the young girl weeping.

“Everything is okay,” I said softly, my tone was hoarse. “The worst has passed,” I stated, mostly for my own benefit.

She appeared to be seven or eight, and seemed to be entirely alone. Her weeping jolted me from my stupor; here was my chance to help. I moved to where she was standing and gave her a reassuring hug. “Don't turn around,” Helen shouted, the warning came after the fact. I caught sight of a man with his face covered in blood. A large metallic item had penetrated the window behind us. Later, we discovered a runaway digger had tumbled down the embankment and smashed into our carriage, leading to the derailment.

Our compartment was trapped with its leading section elevated. Then came the noise of sirens and a fellow passenger requested that I to pass the little girl to him so he could assist her exit through the opening, as kids were being rescued to fire crews on standby. 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 – next to a goods shed in Pudsey – my body started to shake uncontrollably. My eyes scanned for the little girl and observed her being embraced by her mother, who it turned out had been in the toilet during the incident. An emergency worker helpfully fetched my clogs. A fellow passenger plonked down on Helen’s case, making it split apart – though luckily our wine was unharmed. Once we had waited for thirty minutes, we made our way in a complimentary taxi to Blackburn, alongside an adolescent and the female passenger who had broken Helen’s case. Our friend was waiting, pale with worry. She knew there had been a derailment and a staff member had led her away and offered her a hot drink while she hoped for information.

With the invincibility of youth, we pushed the derailment from our minds and carried on with our night out, which featured a unforgettable performance by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. No one died in the incident, although several people were taken to hospital. Helen and I sustained only bruises and aches and pains from the force of the sudden jolt in the carriage. The locomotive was decelerating to come into Leeds station, which had been the crucial element in averting grave physical damage. The fact that nobody was badly hurt made it easier not to dwell on the “what ifs” but the child was the one who changed my outlook profoundly. Attending to her and soothing her helped take my mind off myself and showed me the value of looking outwards in a crisis. As time passed, I have frequently pondered if she had any memory of the event, and how big a deal it had been for her.

Helen and I have remained friends for over 30 years and "Pudsey" is now our code word for our capacity to handle with anything, as long as we're side by side. Being with her that day gave me the impression I was shielded against the worst of the situation. The crash also changed my perspective on various difficult situations, offering me a new viewpoint – and serving as a reminder that, however bad things seem, it is invariably an honor to age.