A Moment That Altered My Life: My Train Was in an Accident – and afterward I Heard a Child Sobbing.

T I realized my life was in danger came a couple of years into my 20s, when life was really just starting out. My best friend, Helen, and I were traveling to Blackburn to visit an old university friend who had made a new home there for work. Thrilled to see each other, and enjoying the thought of the party weekend ahead, we talked incessantly as we traveled by train from York.

We placed our luggage – containing vital items such as bottles of wine and the clogs I had just bought – in the storage compartment and settled down in a comfortable double seat. Roughly halfway through our journey, I was dimly aware of a bang. Another one sounded, now unmistakable. A woman screamed as our carriage was lifted off the tracks in what felt like slow motion. Suddenly, Helen and I were upright in the middle of the aisle, holding each other tight. Looking down, eyes screwed shut, I anticipated the carriage to roll over and burst into flames, as I’d seen in films. I recall pondering our loved ones getting the news. That's when the sound of the child sobbing.

“You’re all right,” I said softly, my voice sounding croaky. “It's finished now,” I murmured, mostly for my own benefit.

Her age was roughly seven or eight, and looked like she had no guardian. Her sobbing snapped me back to reality; this was my opportunity to be useful. I made my way to where she was standing and put my arm around her. “Avoid looking back,” Helen yelled, too late. I caught sight of a man with blood all over his face. An enormous piece of metal had smashed through the window behind us. Later, we found out a driverless construction vehicle had rolled down the hill and collided with the train, leading to the derailment.

Our compartment was trapped with its front end in the air. Then came the noise of sirens and a man nearby requested that I to pass the little girl to him so he could help her out the window, while young passengers were extracted to fire crews on standby. A few minutes later, Helen and I were similarly exiting 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 – my body started to shake uncontrollably. I looked for the little girl and saw her being scooped up by her mum, who it turned out had been in the toilet during the incident. A firefighter kindly retrieved my clogs. Another traveler sat down heavily on Helen’s case, resulting in it breaking open – but, by good fortune our wine stayed unbroken. After a half-hour wait, we traveled in a provided car to Blackburn, with a teenage boy and the woman who had broken Helen’s case. Our university friend greeted us, ashen-faced. She had heard there had been a derailment and a staff member had led her away 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 proceeded with the social outing, which featured a unforgettable performance by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. There were no fatalities in the incident, even though several people were transported to the hospital. Helen and I escaped with bruises and soreness and discomfort from the violent forward motion in the carriage. The locomotive was decelerating to approach Leeds station, which had been the crucial element in averting grave physical damage. The fact that nobody was badly hurt helped not to obsess over the “what ifs” but it was the little girl who changed my outlook profoundly. Taking care of her and soothing her shifted my focus outward and taught me the worth of directing attention externally in a crisis. In the decades since, I have repeatedly asked myself if she recalled any details, and how big a deal it had been for her.

Helen and I have now been friends for over 30 years and Pudsey has become shorthand for our capacity to handle whatever comes, so long as we are together. Having her companionship during the accident created the sensation that I was shielded against the full horror of the event. The accident additionally altered my method of handling various difficult situations, offering me a new viewpoint – and serving as a reminder that, no matter how dire circumstances appear, it remains a gift to age.