PORT ANGELES – As James Walter Paul, 63, lay in a hospital bed at Olympic Medical Center on Friday evening, he knew the two passengers in his van – Daniel Lee Hendrickson, 67, and Howard Leroy Fisher, 63, both of Port Angeles – were hurt.

And he had a gut feeling they were hurt badly.

Paul was recovering from the crash earlier that day in which a van of military veterans he was driving struck a tree along U.S. Highway 101 near Sequim Bay State Park between Sequim and Blyn.

Paul, a former Navy petty officer second class, said during an interview Sunday that when his pastor from Safe Haven Free Methodist Church, Chuck Erskine, came into his hospital room, he knew Fisher had died.

“It is like one of those things, I knew he was hurt bad, but like a wall goes up and you don’t want to hear the worst,” Paul said.

“Chuck came in and told me, and I just broke down crying.”