Five years ago tonight, I was riding Amtrak home from Washington DC. My grandmother had died the day before. Then, this happened.

If nothing else, that week taught me to never take a single day for granted. It’s a good lesson for right now. https://observer.com/2015/05/i-survived-amtrak-188/

Thanks for all your kind comments about this piece of writing, and about me, well, continuing to be alive!
Something that I got wrong in the story when I first wrote it -- I later realized that car with the pole in it that I saw was the one I'd escaped from!

You can see it in the picture attached to my write-up -- it is that first in tact car behind the detached engine. Still incredible to think I walked out of there. This NYT had a good diagram if you are, like me, obsessed with these kinds of things: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/17/us/amtrak-train-crash-derailment-philadelphia.html

Also, I wrote that I didn't have a broken bone, which wound up not being true. The hospital only x-rayed my back. Eventually that felt better but I continued to have pain in my chest. Turns out I had a broken rib, which was not fun. But still, I walked away extraordinarily lucky.

Which reminds me. After the crash, as I was wondering why I'd been spared, a reporter who also had a near-death experience wrote me to say that in the end, I -- and he -- had just gotten lucky. And that every good thing that would happen after the crash was because I was lucky.

I think about that often. Many good things have happened to me since that day. I have many more hopes and dreams for good things to come. Some people were not lucky. But I was, and am, lucky, and I'll try to do the most I can with the luck that I had.