North Bend resident Jeff Warren doesn’t know whether his actions at a severe head-on car crash Wednesday morning, Aug. 3, near Carnation helped saved a life.

But his actions in putting out a fire, then waiting and holding the young victim’s hand until firefighters arrived, made a difference in his own.

“I know I would have wanted to touch somebody,” said Warren, the agent at his namesake Snoqualmie Ridge State Farm Insurance agency.

Warren was returning to the office from an appointment in Duvall at about 10 a.m. when he saw a huge log truck skidding to a halt on Kelly Road. Warren pulled to a halt, saw a fire in a ditch, then noticed a smashed-up Honda Civic in the hollow. The car was crushed to the passenger compartment from an apparent head-on collision. He ran to the nearby house, grabbed a bucket and filled it with water, then poured it on the Civic’s burning engine. After the third bucket, the fire was extinguished. Then the badly injured driver started to scream.

Warren couldn’t see him through the wreckage, but he managed to take his hand, and learned that he was a teenage boy named Nick.

Warren stayed with Nick, who was trapped in the car, waiting until firefighters and emergency teams arrived. They said the Lord’s Prayer together several times.

Finally, peering through the wreckage, Warren was able to see Nick’s eyes.

“I told him it was going to be OK,” he said.

Warren stayed and helped as police and emergency responders helped Nick from the car, then airlifted him for aid.

“I think anybody who walked up would have done that,” Warren said. “It’s just what you do.”

Warren emphasizes the concept of service in his own life, and how others reaching out to him have changed his life.

“Nick did more for me than I ever did for him,” he said.