DRESDEN, Tenn. — A Tennessee teen says that a car accident earlier this year changed his life in more ways than one, including his perspective on attending church on Sundays.

Kourtney Sawyer was to have started his senior year of high school in the fall. But in August, just weeks before school was to start, the teen was involved in a serious car accident that threatened his chances of playing sports for his final year as a high school student. Besides numerous broken bones, Sawyer had a severed facial nerve, a collapsed lung and also suffered brain injury.

As he lay hospitalized, the teen called out to God.

“I relied on God for pretty much everything,” Sawyer told the Jackson Sun this week. “I prayed several times a day. Not trying to be selfish, but I prayed for Him to heal me.”

But he said that even if God didn’t heal him, he was willing to trust in the Lord’s providence.

“I am on His path, and I will do what He wants me to do,” he said.

Sawyer was hospitalized for five days, and then underwent intense physical therapy to regain his strength. He returned to school this month, and was allowed to play on the high school basketball team again.

He told local reporter Michael Odom that the whole experience has ignited a spiritual awakening inside of him.

“I’ve always gone to church on Sunday, and I am active in the youth group,” Sawyer stated. “I am now stronger in my faith. Before it was just going to church, but now I try harder to get to church, and I go for a reason.”

“I pray for my team in the locker room during football and basketball season,” he continued. “I try to get more people involved in church. … I pray before everything I do.”

Sawyer recognizes that God sustained him that day when the car he was driving struck a tree.

“God saved my life,” he stated. “My life was in His hands that day.”

The report comes just weeks after a New Jersey man likewise gave thanks to God for sparing his life after he was involved in a fiery highway crash that took the life of one driver and left another in critical condition.

As previously reported, on Dec. 6, 24-year-old James Pinaire drove into the path of a fuel tanker on a highway in Union, and then crashed into the mulch truck being driven by 53-year-old Mario Quiroz. The fuel tanker, carrying 9,000 gallons of gas, also struck Quiroz’ truck as well. The result was a substantial fireball that blazed in the midst of the wreckage in the middle of the highway.

Pinaire was pronounced dead on the scene, and the driver of the fuel tanker, 35-year-old Balwinder Singh, was taken to the hospital in critical condition. Quiroz was initially trapped inside of his vehicle while the flames surrounded him, but was able to climb out his window although it would only roll halfway down. He emerged with only a small cut and was released after being checked out at the hospital for internal injuries.

“I don’t know that to think,” Quiroz  told CBS News through the interpretation of his daughter, Jennifer. “I just think that God gave me another chance to live.”

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