Students and teachers lined the sidewalk in front of Catawba Elementary School holding hand-painted signs welcoming two classmates back to school.
The weather was cold but spirits were high as Tyler Trivette, 12, and his brother Isaiah, 10, arrived in a gleaming red fire truck.
The brothers had not attended school since Nov. 11 when a tractor-trailer T-boned their car at the intersection of N.C. 10 and 16. The boys were headed home with their stepbrother, grandmother and a family friend after a trip to the grocery store.
The impact killed the other three people in the car that day.
Tyler and Isaiah were taken to Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte where they spent weeks recovering from their injuries.
Isaiah's arms, hip and leg were broken. Tyler suffered a broken arm, hand, rib, collarbones, facial fractures and brain injuries.
Chief Donald Robinson of the Catawba Fire Department and his fellow firefighters went to visit Tyler in the hospital in late November. Isaiah had already been released.
"We were trying to motivate him and get him excited about coming home from the hospital and going back to school," Robinson said.
The nurses told him not to expect much of a response.
"He was in a complete body brace when we got there," Robinson said.
He told the sixth-grader that he'd make sure his return to school was a special event. Robinson told Tyler he might even get to take a ride to school on a fire truck.
The boy's eyes lit up and a big smile appeared on his face.
"That night he made a 360-degree turnaround," Robinson said.
"We didn't expect this quick of a recovery," said Tyler's mother, Amanda Storey.
Tyler was released from the hospital the week before Christmas. Isaiah had been released the week before Thanksgiving.
The brothers have only seen a couple of neighborhood friends since the accident but they hadn't been forgotten.
The fourthand-sixth grade classes made "Get well soon" cards and posters for Tyler and Isaiah.
Catawba firefighters delivered two boxes of them to the boys.
Storey said the fire department and school have been a "tremendous" help and support to her family since the accident. "They've been there for us a lot," she said.
When Tyler and Isaiah showed up to school in the cab of the fire truck and saw their friends and classmates holding signs reading "Welcome Back" and "We Missed You," broad grins spread across their faces.
They seemed a little overwhelmed at first but were quickly embraced by their friends and teachers who led the brothers into school.
A tree has been donated to the school in memory of Tyler's and Isaiah's stepbrother, Cody Storey, 11, who was killed in the crash. It will be planted near the playground, said Catawba Elementary School Principal Vermel Moore.
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