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T I realized I was about to die came a couple of years into my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My dearest friend, Helen, and I were on our way to Blackburn to reunite with a friend from college who had just relocated there for work. Delighted to be together, and enjoying the thought of the party weekend ahead, we chatted nonstop as we journeyed by train from York.

We stashed our bags – containing vital items such as our favorite wines and my brand-new black clogs – in the storage compartment and got seated in a snug pair of seats. About 50 minutes into our journey, I was vaguely conscious of a bang. Then came another, now unmistakable. A woman screamed as our carriage catapulted upward in what felt like a dreamlike pace. In an instant, Helen and I were upright in the middle of the aisle, holding each other tight. With my head lowered, vision blocked, I waited for the carriage to overturn and ignite, like in the movies. I recall pondering our relatives and companions receiving the notification. Then I heard the child sobbing.

“It's going to be fine,” I murmured, my voice sounding croaky. “It's finished now,” I murmured, more to myself than her.

Her age was roughly seven or eight, and appeared to be completely on her own. Her crying shook me out of my trance; now I could do something meaningful. I moved to where she was standing and wrapped an arm around her. “Avoid looking back,” Helen yelled, the warning came after the fact. I caught sight of a man whose face was bloody. An enormous piece of metal had penetrated the window behind us. Later, we learned a runaway digger had descended the slope and smashed into our carriage, causing us to derail.

Our compartment was trapped with its leading section elevated. Following that came of sirens and a man nearby instructed me to give the girl to him so he could help her out the window, as kids were being rescued to fire crews on standby. Not long afterward, Helen and I were likewise scrambling out of the train window and climbing down a ladder 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 saw her being scooped up by her mum, we later learned had been in the toilet during the incident. A firefighter kindly retrieved my clogs. One of the passengers plonked down on Helen’s case, making it split apart – but, by good fortune our wine was unharmed. Following a 30-minute delay, we traveled in a free cab to Blackburn, with a teenage boy and the woman who had caused the luggage to burst. Our host was there, 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 waited for news.

Displaying the fearlessness of young adulthood, we pushed the derailment from our minds and proceeded with the social outing, which included a memorable turn by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. No one died in the incident, even though several people were taken to hospital. Helen and I escaped with bruises and general soreness from the violent forward motion in the carriage. The train had been slowing to approach Leeds station, which had been the key factor in avoiding serious injury. Given that nobody was badly hurt helped not to obsess over the “what ifs” but it was the little girl who left a lasting impact on me. Looking after her and soothing her shifted my focus outward and showed me the worth of focusing on others in a crisis. In the decades since, I have repeatedly asked myself if she had any memory of the event, and what a major event it had been for her.

Helen and I have stayed close for more than three decades and That location's name now symbolizes for our capacity to handle any situation, provided we have each other. Her presence that fateful day gave me the impression I was protected from the most terrifying aspects. The crash also changed the way I approach other types of crises, providing me with insight – and reinforcing the idea that, regardless of how terrible things look, it is invariably an honor to age.