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The moment I realized the end was near occurred in my 20s, as my adult life was unfolding. My closest companion, Helen, and I were on our way to Blackburn to visit a friend from college who had made a new home there for work. Overjoyed at the reunion, and reveling in the anticipation of the party weekend ahead, we talked incessantly as we journeyed by train from York.

We stashed our bags – full of essentials such as bottles of wine and my new pair of 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 was thrown up into the air in what felt like slow motion. In an instant, Helen and I were upright in the middle of the aisle, hugging each other. Head down, eyes screwed shut, I anticipated the carriage to flip and explode, as I’d seen in films. My thoughts turned to our relatives and companions hearing the tragic update. Subsequently, there was the young girl weeping.

“Everything is okay,” I murmured, my tone was hoarse. “It’s all over,” I stated, more to myself than her.

She appeared to be seven or eight, and appeared to be completely on her own. Her crying shook me out of my trance; here was my chance to help. I made my way to where she was standing and wrapped an arm around her. “Avoid looking back,” Helen yelled, too late. I glimpsed a man whose face was bloody. An enormous piece of metal had crashed through the window behind us. Later, we learned a uncontrolled excavator had rolled down the hill and collided with the train, leading to the derailment.

Our compartment was trapped with its nose pointing upward. Then came the noise of sirens and a fellow passenger asked me to hand the child over so he could pass her through the window, where children were being evacuated to emergency personnel below. A few minutes later, Helen and I were likewise scrambling out of the train window and climbing down a ladder onto the railway line.

Back on terra firma – beside a freight warehouse in Pudsey – my body started to shake uncontrollably. I looked for the little girl and saw her being scooped up by her mum, we later learned had been in the lavatory when the crash occurred. An emergency worker helpfully fetched my clogs. A fellow passenger plonked down on Helen’s case, resulting in it breaking open – however, fortunately our wine was unharmed. Once we had waited for thirty minutes, we traveled in a complimentary taxi to Blackburn, accompanied by a young man and the woman who had broken Helen’s case. Our friend was waiting, ashen-faced. She was aware there had been a derailment and a guard had taken her into his office and prepared some tea for her while she hoped for information.

With the invincibility of youth, we set the accident aside and carried on with our night out, which involved a notable act by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. No one died in the incident, even though several people were taken to hospital. Helen and I sustained only bruises and aches and pains from the impact of being thrown forward in the carriage. Our speed had been decreasing to come into Leeds station, which had been the crucial element in avoiding serious injury. Since nobody was badly hurt helped not to focus on the “what ifs” but that young girl who changed my outlook profoundly. Looking after her and soothing her shifted my focus outward and taught me the worth of looking outwards in a crisis. Over the years, I have frequently pondered 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 "Pudsey" is now our code word for our ability to cope with anything, so long as we are together. Being with her that day created the sensation that I was insulated from the most terrifying aspects. The crash also changed my perspective on different emergencies, offering me a new viewpoint – and reinforcing the idea that, however bad things seem, it is invariably an honor to grow older.