If I had to guess, a train derailment in Philadelphia 10 years ago probably isn’t top of mind for most people.

But I think about it every day because I didn’t just read about that crash, I crawled out of it.

Once you’ve been launched sideways across a train car going over 100 miles an hour — after two combat tours and more than a few close calls — you start counting your lives like a cat. I think I’m on life number five.

It happened on May 12, 2015. A Tuesday evening.

Ten years ago, that crash killed eight people and injured more than 200. Of the 243 passengers, I was one of the lucky ones. I walked away. Though “walked” might be generous. I crawled, bloodied and concussed, out of a twisted steel coffin.

That train ride — like so many moments in life — started normal and ended sideways and upside-down.

That morning began like any other. I was up at 5:30am, home in Bucks County, PA. CrossFit at 6. I box jumped and then climbed a rope 21 times to a target two stories high. Got home, got my kids — Maggie, 8, and Jack, 5 — onto the school bus. Then I was off to Washington, D.C. to tape an episode of my MSNBC show, Taking the Hill, and meet with a candidate I was recruiting to join me at the Pentagon. At the time, I was being vetted by the White House and the FBI to serve as Under Secretary of the Army. I’d served in Iraq and taught at West Point. This felt like my next chapter of public service.

The day felt productive. Life was busy, meaningful and full.

I felt gratitude for how far I’d come. When I served in Congress, I was one of the least wealthy members — out of 535, I was number 533. Great credit but still paying off my student loans and home mortgage. Almost there, even today!

I had no idea that by nightfall, another one of my nine lives would be spent.

That evening, I boarded the train home from D.C. and grabbed a seat in the café car. Across from me was Senator Tom Carper of Delaware. Sitting nearby was a 20-year-old Naval Academy midshipman named Justin Zemser. He was a former wide receiver and vice president of the Jewish Midshipmen Club. Rockaway Beach kid. We joked — Go Army, Beat Navy. I offered to buy him a beer. He reminded me of the cadets I’d taught years earlier. I remember thinking: This kid is going to lead something big someday.

A few hours later, Justin was dead.

“I said I was fine. I wasn’t.”

I had my earbuds in, working on my iPad. Then, at 9:23pm, the train entered a sharp curve in Northeast Philadelphia at Frankford Junction going 100+ miles an hour, more than double the speed limit. The engineer, a 32-year-old new to the route, was distracted by emergency radio chatter from another train. He hit the emergency brake just moments too late and the train derailed like something out of a movie.

Two cars flipped and three rolled onto their sides. Metal twisted into unrecognizable shapes. Glass exploded. A man across from me had been replaced by a wall of steel. Another man next to me was unconscious. I slammed into the opposite wall, right where Senator Carper had been sitting. If he hadn’t gotten off in Wilmington, I would have crushed him.

When I came to, I checked my arms and legs, then opened my eyes, I saw the moon through the place where the window was now the roof. There was blood. Screaming. And then, strangely, nothing. Just mostly moans, like the world was holding its breath.

Instead of leaving the wreckage, I decided to put my Army training to use and stayed back.

I shook the unconscious man beside me awake and got up onto a table still bolted to the floor.

When I was finally able to get myself up, I climbed through wreckage and got to work helping lift people up and out the window after reaching for the emergency lever and punching it open. Combat teaches you to compartmentalize. To not look back, focus on the next thing.

I started pulling people through what used to be the window. I used my tie as a tourniquet. I gave what I could: comfort, reassurance, directions to crawl toward light.

I told people help was coming — even when I didn’t know if it was. I gave hope the way I was trained to.

I remember the stillness after the chaos, the silence before the sirens, the deep understanding that nothing would ever be the same again.

Eventually, first responders arrived. One of them — a firefighter I’d grown up with in Philly — shouted, “Murphy, is that you?” I told him who needed help and who was still alive in our train car.

Minutes later, my phone rang. It was Rachel Maddow. She asked if I was okay, and after I said I was, asked if I could go live on her show. I said yes, and then went on-air to report what had just happened from inside the wreckage until her hour was up and Lawrence O’Donnell took over.

Shortly after the call ended, so did my battery. Timing, as always, is everything.

When I finally got home, my wife Jenni was understandably furious. I hadn’t called her. I didn’t even think to. My phone had been dead. I was still in survival mode.

I said I was fine. But I wasn’t.

The secret I carried with me

The next night, coaching my son’s hockey team, I forgot every kid’s name. Names I’d known for years. I called one of them “27.”

That’s when Jenni knew something was wrong.

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are strange like that — they don’t always scream.May 12, 2015 Sometimes they whisper. They hide in tiny cracks: in memory, in language, in emotions, parts of yourself you thought would never change and always be the same.

This was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

I’d survived Iraq, where 19 of my fellow soldiers didn’t make it home. I’d had a gun pulled on me three times before I turned 18 growing up in Philly. And yet, for some reason, this — the concussion from the train crash — was the thing I was ashamed to admit. I couldn’t even say it out loud. Not to Jenni. Not to my friends. Not to myself. It felt wrong to speak of injury when others didn’t survive. I was lucky once again. Another case of survivor’s guilt. So I did what so many do: I didn’t talk about it. From the pain. From the symptoms. From the people trying to help.

A friend from the Army stepped in and insisted I see a doctor. I spent two days in a dark room. No phone. No stimulation. Just quiet. It helped. But I didn’t talk about the crash — not for a long time. Even now, it still feels raw.

You don’t get to choose the moment that tests you. But you do get to choose what you do with every breath. I’m still choosing to make a positive difference, every damn day.

I’ve come to believe this: When moments of chaos hit, your habits either fail you or save you. That morning’s rope climbs helped me physically climb out of a toppled train. The military drills gave me focus, discipline, and purpose.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” That quote lives inside me now.

Less than a year later, I was sworn in as the Acting Secretary of the Army — leading the very institution that taught me what to do when everything goes sideways. The Washington Post called me the “Soldier’s Secretary.” I led morning runs when visiting troops. Called cadence. I even rappelled down the side of the Fox News building live on air with the 101st Airborne while giving an interview.

But the public version of that story was only half of it.

What people didn’t see were the quiet moments. The embarrassing memory lapses of people’s names I’ve known for years, compensating with a “Yo Brother” or “Hey Sister” because I recognize their face but can’t process their name. The weight of survivor’s guilt once again. The neighbor who told the FBI when they knocked on his door while I was going through White House vetting that he didn’t know me — “Nope, I don’t know Patrick Murphy” because he was trying to help, thinking it might somehow protect me if I was in trouble. (I love my neighborhood, people are so loyal.)

Most people never see what you carry.

Some scars don’t show up on X-rays. Some strength doesn’t show up until it has to.

What saved me that night wasn’t luck alone. It was habit. Muscle memory. The box jumps and 21 rope climbs I did that morning at CrossFit helped me climb out of a train car on its side.

In the military we have a phrase: “Charlie Mike.” Continue the mission.

I still whisper it to myself.

I don’t know why I survived when others didn’t. That Navy Midshipman was the best of the best. I only know that I did. And because I did, I owe them something. Not just remembrance, but action. Integrity. Presence. A life that’s lived with purpose. You don’t get to choose the moment that tests you. But you do get to choose what you do with every breath. I’m still choosing to make a positive difference, every damn day.

And now I live like someone who somehow got more lives than they expected.

Maybe survival isn’t about how many “cat lives” you lose, but how many new lives you can touch and make a difference in.

The Honorable Patrick J. Murphy is a Wharton lecturer, Vetrepreneur, and the 32nd Army Under Secretary after earning the Bronze Star for service in Baghdad, Iraq as an All-American with the 82nd Airborne Division — @PatrickMurphyPA on Instagram and Twitter.

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