The Daily Populous Saturday August 2nd, 2025 evening edition
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'I married the train driver who saved my life'

26 October 2024 Share Save David Spereall BBC News Share Save

Charlotte and Dave Lay Charlotte and Dave married in 2022, three years after their first encounter

Warning: This article contains references to suicide and mental health issues.

On a summer afternoon in 2019, nurse Charlotte Lay got ready for her night shift as normal but "wasn't feeling quite right". Within a short space of time she had decided to end her own life close to a West Yorkshire railway station. But thanks to the kindness of the train driver who found her in crisis, she did not go through with it. Three years later they married each other and went on to have children.

"I'd struggled with my mental health since my teens and I'd been in and out of the system since," Charlotte, now 33, says. Her memories of that day five years ago are "quite blurry" but she says she remembers seeing a train pulling up on the tracks where she was. "I remember seeing a man getting off the train and starting to panic and thinking he was going to tell me off," she recalls. "He approached me and said 'hi, my name is Dave, are you having a bad day?' "I said ‘yeah, just a bit’. He went ‘OK’, we can sit and talk until it feels better."

Charlotte says she and Dave wanted to share their story to show people who are struggling that "life gets better"

Dave, who works for train operator Northern, remembers getting out of his cab, "kneeling down" in front of Charlotte and introducing himself. He told her they would talk things through "until you feel comfortable enough" to get onto the train, where she could be taken to safety. The pair talked for half an hour, by which time Charlotte, though still distressed, agreed to get into the cab. She was taken to Skipton Station and left in the care of the police. The following day, Charlotte was desperate to find the man who had been so kind to her and issued an appeal on a local Facebook group for anyone who worked for Northern who might be able to put her in touch. "I’d have understood if he didn’t want to hear from me, but I just wanted to say ‘thank you’ for giving me the time and for treating me like I was human being," she says. Her plea was successful and after Charlotte was given Dave's number by one of his colleagues who had seen the appeal, she sent him a text. Dave, who is now 47, was equally relieved to hear from her. He says he had "never had the opportunity" to get off the train and talk to someone in crisis before. "I needed to know she was all right," he explains. "I’d contacted police to try to find out what happened to her and just wanted to make sure she was safe. "I felt like I’d had a duty to make sure she was all right. We’d had that rapport built by the side of the track. It was just nice to be able to make that difference to somebody."

The couple credit each other with saving their lives

After Dave returned Charlotte's text telling her he was available whenever she needed to speak to someone, they began exchanging messages on a daily basis. They then met for a coffee two months later and the rest was history. In 2022, the couple, who live in nearby Wilsden, got married, with Charlotte 22 weeks pregnant. But before then, there was one more twist to their story. In July 2020, Dave was diagnosed with testicular cancer, after he went to his GP with a bad back. He is adamant that he would never have gone to the doctors were it not for Charlotte's insistence. "It's because I'm a bloke," he says. "I'd done 12 or 13 years in the motor trade working on cold floors and out in the elements, lifting and carrying silly things. I just put it down to a bad back. "Charlotte kept saying 'go to the doctors'. I said it was just me getting old." The mates who have met for a pint every Thursday for 56 years

'This town is where goths feel safe and accepted'

The family shop saying goodbye after 64 years Weeks after his diagnosis, Dave was given the all clear. A consultant at St James' Hospital in Leeds last year told him he would no longer have been alive had he not had been diagnosed when he was. "Charlotte may say I saved her life, which I don’t know about really, but she saved my life as well," Dave says.

That1RebelGuy on August 2nd, 2025 at 13:38 UTC »

Hope she gets free rides for life