'Don't drink and drive,' says teen seriously hurt in Smithfield DWI crash

Two teens seriously injured after their grandmother's minivan was rammed from behind over the weekend said Wednesday that they hope their story gives drivers pause before they get behind the wheel after drinking.

"I heard a [crash sound], and I thought it was a dream," 15-year-old Hailey Wagner said of the Sunday night crash that killed her boyfriend, 15-year-old Ethan Handly, and her grandmother, 65-year-old Marjory Wagner Regan.

Regan's Dodge minivan was stopped for a red light at the intersection of Wilsons Mills Road and M. Durwood Stephenson Highway in Smithfield when it was rear-ended by a Toyota sedan traveling at 90 mph, police said.

Regan was taking her two grandchildren, Hailey and her 14-year-old brother, Stephen Wagner Jr., both students at Cleveland High School, and two of their friends, Handly and 13-year-old Chloe Joyner, home after dinner and a movie. She had dropped Joyner at her home before the crash.

"Before the car hit us, I was asleep in Ethan’s lap, and he was singing to me," Hailey said.

"I looked over at my grandmother, and I felt her stomach, and I knew she wasn’t breathing," Stephen said.

He said he then screamed for his sister.

"I was screaming her name, and I finally heard her yell back to me, and I knew she was OK," he said.

"I told him he needed to calm down, that he needed to stop yelling. I was OK, that we were going to be OK," she said.

Hailey had been thrown from the minivan and was lying in a pool of gasoline in the roadway after the collision shoved the van almost 30 yards across the intersection.

"It was just really wet. I could smell gas, and it was cold," she said.

Both Hailey and Stephen suffered neck fractures, but neither is paralyzed. She also suffered burns from the pavement and gasoline, as well as a broken foot, while he also has a back injury.

Stephen was in the front seat and was saved by an airbag, while investigators said his sister likely survived the crash because she was lying down in back.

"It’s bittersweet. I’ve got my kids, but I lost my mom," Stephen Wagner Sr. said.

Instead of taking time to grieve for his mother, Wagner has been with his children in WakeMed in Raleigh for three days. The night of the crash, they were in the emergency room next to the driver charged with smashing into them.

Felix Antonio Juarez-Antunez, 34, of 1519 Barbour Road in Smithfield, has been charged with two counts each of felony death by vehicle and felony serious injury by vehicle.

Police said he was driving at 110 mph in a 45-mph zone and left 117 feet of skid marks before slamming into back of Regan's minivan.

"He told the officer he had seen Superman and he was trying to catch him. That’s why he was going so fast," the elder Stephen Wagner said.

Police haven't released details of Juarez-Antunez' blood-alcohol content, but the teens' father said officers told him it was very high.

"That’s not an accident, and I doubt that’s your first rodeo driving drunk when you’re feeling confident to go drive somewhere that drunk," he said.

"Don’t drink and drive because you never know who you’re going to hit and how that's going to affect them," Hailey said.

Juarez-Antunez remains in the Johnston County jail under $350,000 bond, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed an immigration detainer on him, saying he is in the country illegally and faces deportation.