It wasn't like in the movies. On film, DerMarr Johnson has seen cars blow up hundreds of times, but this was different, more hazy.

"It kind of felt like a dream," he says, and, indeed, as he describes the way his blue Mercedes smacked into a tree in the early morning hours of Sept. 13, he keeps pausing, trying to reel a coherent recollection from his murky pool of memory.

"I was weak, and my friend, he pulled my body out of the car. I pulled out my legs. Then we rolled down the hill together, away from the car, which was already on fire.

"It wasn't like you'd think. Sort of a loud bang and then more flames, but not some big explosion. And I didn't even really think I was that hurt. I didn't know."