A Pikeville man is in the hospital after his plane crashed in Bell County.

The plane went down on the rugged Mountain View Drive. Several people cleaning up ATV trails say they saw it all and helped the injured pilot until rescue crews could arrive.

"He was flying over this way, tilting. Something was wrong when he come over, we heard the boom," said David Sprinkles.

Sprinkles and several other people were cleaning up ATV trails when they noticed the small, single engine Cessna clipping some power lines.

"Was real close to the ground. I yelled on the radio, he's trying to land, he came up, banked, and then nosedived," said Diane Collins.

Diane and others called for help, but paramedics would have to fly in to reach 65 year old Emory Hurley.

"He was upside down in the airplane. We got him out, I personally pulled him out, sustained him, stabilized him," Sprinkles said.

They took life-saving actions.

"He was gasping for breath. His false teeth were cutting his airway off, so I pulled them out," said David Marksbury.

Even taking cues from paramedics over the phone.

"They said we could cut the seatbelt loose. We dropped him down, he kept trying to get out, we told him to be still because he may have something broke," Marksbury said.

Paramedics arrived and flew Hurley to a Tennessee hospital where he's expected to make it.

"If we hadn't been up here riding and working, no telling how long before they found him. He's a lucky man," Marksbury said.

"It's a miracle. The right place at the right time," Sprinkles said.

With the quick actions they took, they just might have saved a life that could have been lost.

Emory Hurley, who is from Pikeville, is recovering tonight at the UT Medical Center in Knoxville.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the crash.