A co-worker said two men were just having fun on an open-air double-decker bus on the way to a Nationals game, unaware of any danger, when they struck their heads on an overpass July 11 and died.

Josh Stoll, 24, of Sterling, and Mike Feiock, 35, of Centreville, struck a metal rod under the 11th Street overpass as the sightseeing bus headed down Dwight D. Eisenhower Freeway from a tailgating party at RFK to Nationals Stadium for a baseball game.

"I was right next to them on the bus," said Sheila Christensen, an administrator at landscaping firm Brickman Group, where the two men also worked. "We had gone through two other underpasses and they had reached up with their arms extended and touched the underpass. That's why we didn't know there was any danger, because we had already gone under two and there was plenty of room. When they saw the bridge coming, they didn't duck because it was the same height as the other two."

Christensen said that the 11th Street underpass, however, had a "steel pole" that was not immediately visible and apparently protruded from under the underpass ceiling.

"We couldn't see it because it was dark," she said. "We were all just saying how awesome it really was to feel the open air and feel like we were flying, and then I heard a loud thump and felt a splash on my leg. I was the first one to run down to the bus driver to tell him what had happened."

Christensen remembers both her co-workers as jovial, good-hearted men who loved life.

"Josh was so funny and he made my day every morning," she said. "He always made the best of everything and was really looking forward to getting married this fall."

Stoll, a 2002 Herndon High School graduate, was engaged to the school's assistant varsity girl's softball coach, Brooke Small, also a 2002 Herndon graduate.

Small was unavailable for comment, but her sister Whitney, a rising senior at Herndon High, said she remembers Josh as "a brother who was a really, really great guy."

Christensen said Feiock, who had recently moved to Centreville from New York, was an architectural designer who had recently been made an account manager in the company's Sterling office.

"We were all a really close-knit family," she said.

Christensen said Feiock was the youngest brother of five sisters and "would do anything for you." She said he once saved the life of a fellow co-worker on a company-sponsored trip.

Christensen said the bus accident happened near the U.S. Marine barracks and that several Marines helped out in the emergency.

"Mike's family is from New York," she said of Feiock. "The Marine chaplain contacted them so they could come down to be at Mike's side. A co-worker named Brandon, who is an EMT, kept Mike alive as long as he could and I know that if it wasn't for him, Mike's parents would not have been able to say goodbye."