An Incident That Changed My Perspective: My Train Was in an Accident – and then I Overheard a Young Girl Sobbing.

The moment I realized my life was in danger came a couple of years into my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My dearest friend, Helen, and I were headed to Blackburn to catch up with an old university friend who had made a new home there for work. Delighted to be together, and basking in the prospect of the party weekend ahead, we talked incessantly as we made our way by train from York.

We stashed our bags – packed with necessities such as wine bottles and the clogs I had just bought – in the storage compartment and made ourselves comfortable in a comfortable double seat. About 50 minutes into our journey, I was dimly aware of a bang. This was followed by a second, this time impossible to ignore. A woman screamed as our carriage was thrown up into the air in what felt like a delayed sequence. All at once, Helen and I were somehow on our feet in the middle of the aisle, clinging to one another. Head down, vision blocked, I anticipated the carriage to flip and explode, like in the movies. I remember thinking our families and friends receiving the notification. Subsequently, there was the little girl crying.

“You’re all right,” I said softly, speaking with a rasp. “The worst has passed,” I murmured, primarily to calm my own nerves.

Her age was roughly seven or eight, and looked like she had no guardian. Her crying shook me out of my trance; now I could do something meaningful. I moved to where she was standing and put my arm around her. “Don’t look round,” Helen shouted, the warning came after the fact. I caught sight of a man with blood all over his face. A huge metal object had crashed through the window behind us. Subsequently, we learned a runaway digger had rolled down the hill and collided with the train, causing us to derail.

Our compartment was trapped with its front end in the air. Following that came of sirens and a man nearby instructed me to pass the little girl to him so he could pass her through the window, where children were being evacuated to emergency personnel below. Shortly after, Helen and I were likewise scrambling out of the train window and climbing down a ladder on to the track.

Once back on solid ground – adjacent to a storage building in Pudsey – I began trembling violently. I searched for the little girl and saw her being scooped up by her mum, who it turned out had been in the lavatory during the incident. A rescuer graciously recovered my clogs. Another traveler plonked down on Helen’s case, making it split apart – however, fortunately our wine was unharmed. After a half-hour wait, we proceeded in a provided car to Blackburn, alongside an adolescent and the female passenger who had damaged the suitcase. Our friend was waiting, pale with worry. She was aware there had been a derailment and a staff member had led her away and made her a cup of tea while she anticipated updates.

With the invincibility of youth, we pushed the derailment from our minds and proceeded with the social outing, which featured a notable act by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. No one died in the incident, despite the fact that several people were transported to the hospital. Helen and I got away with bruises and soreness and discomfort from the force of the sudden jolt in the carriage. The train had been slowing to approach Leeds station, which had been the key factor in averting grave physical damage. Since nobody was badly hurt allowed us not to dwell on the “what ifs” but it was the little girl who made a permanent impression. Looking after her and soothing her helped take my mind off myself and taught me the value of looking outwards in a crisis. In the decades since, I have frequently pondered if she recalled any details, and what a major event it had been for her.

Helen and I have now been friends for more than three decades and "Pudsey" is now our code word for our ability to cope with anything, as long as we're side by side. Her presence that fateful day created the sensation that I was protected from the full horror of the event. The crash also changed my method of handling other types of crises, giving me perspective – and serving as a reminder that, regardless of how terrible things look, it remains a gift to get older.