MCEWEN, Tenn. (WKRN) — An avid watch collector and bicyclist, it didn’t take much to make 62-year-old James Warner happy, according to his family.

“He was just a joy to be around,” Susan Dodson, Warner’s niece said. “He loved to cut up and laugh, and he just enjoyed the simple pleasures in life.”

Dodson said her uncle loved life until his very last second.

Warner was killed in McEwen during Friday’s storms. He and his nephew, Dodson’s brother, were driving to Waverly to visit Warner’s brother at a nursing home when a tree fell on their car and impaled Warner. He later died at Three Rivers Hospital.

“The circumstances are just so tragic,” Dodson said. “We had no chance to say goodbye or anything.”

Dodson’s brother was hurt in the accident, but luckily he survived. However, his physical injuries don’t compare to the emotional pain he has felt since his uncle’s death.

Dodson told News 2 the two men were best friends.

She recalled the time her uncle saved her brother’s life when he was around 14 years old.

“They were swimming, and my brother got on his back, and he said he felt a hand grab him, and it was Uncle James,” Dodson said. “He saved him, so that gives you just the type of person Uncle James was. He was just a wonderful person.”

According to family members, Warner had no savings for a proper funeral. His loved ones have launched a GoFundMe to raise money to lay him to rest.

“We’re asking if anybody could donate just any amount, it would mean so much to us right now. It would mean the world,” Dodson said.