"I heard the train whistle, but I didn't pay any attention to it," he said. "I turned around, I was cutting the grass, and when I came back around I saw the train coming out of the trees. Then it hit the truck and and threw it up in the air and flipped it around."

"I ran inside and told mom to call (his sister) Marsha," he added. "She's a nurse."

Sawyer and his sister Marsha Stonecypher went to the accident site to see if there was anything they could do.

"(Temple) was still breathing when I first got there, but he was unconscious. I didn't even know the other person was in there," Sawyer said.

"A couple of rescue people got there about three minutes after I got there," Stonecypher said. "They came real fast."

Donnie Beacham, director of emergency services in Currituck County, said, "When the ambulance first got here it was obvious that we had two fatalities. We had to remove both doors to get into the vehicle to get them removed."

Stonecypher said Temple did not regain consciousness, and there was little she could do to help before members of the Crawford Rescue Service arrived.

"I just held (Temple's) hand and prayed for him," she said. "That was all you could do. He was gone within about four minutes after I got there."

She and Saywer said as terrible as the accident was, perhaps some good could come of it.

"A lot of people have had near misses here," Stonecypher said. "Maybe this will get somebody's attention."