SEAGOVILLE, Texas — A Seagoville tow truck driver is being credited with helping save a man’s life after spotting him “bobbing up and down” in frigid drainage water and jumping in to keep his head above the surface until officers arrived — a rescue the interim police chief said came within a two-minute window of being too late.

^{Douglas Lane (Photo credit: FOX4)}

Police say Douglas Lane, 41, was driving Tuesday when he noticed an abandoned vehicle in the eastbound service lane of U.S. 175. When he stopped to check it, Lane heard someone yelling for help and then saw a man in a nearby highway drainage culvert, struggling in icy water.

Lane immediately called 911 and went into the culvert to assist. He told that he could see the man’s body “bobbing up and down in the water,” and at one point watched the man’s head slip underwater.

“His face went in the water and my instinct was to say, ‘Oh no, well, you’re not going to do this,’ and I reached in there,” Lane said.

Lane said the man was too heavy for him to pull out alone, but he kept him from going under while waiting for officers. In the version of events described by police, Lane held onto the hood of the man’s sweatshirt to keep his head above water until help arrived.

When Seagoville officers got to the scene, Lane helped them pull the man from the culvert. Police said the man was unresponsive when they got him out of the freezing water. After noticing signs of drug use, officers administered Narcan, and it worked, reviving him.

Interim Seagoville Police Chief Steve Davis said the rescue was dangerously close to turning fatal.

“He had a faint pulse,” Davis said, adding the man was “non-responsive” and that “his eyes were rolled back in his head.” Davis also said that if Lane had responded two minutes later, the man likely would have died.

Police identified the rescued man as a 39-year-old Dallas man. He was treated for hypothermia and taken to a hospital, where he remains in the ICU.

Investigators say the man’s vehicle was found nearby and was identified as belonging to him, but authorities have not determined how he ended up in the water.

Lane told reporters Wednesday he still hasn’t fully processed what happened, and while officers have credited him with saving a life, he said he was guided by a lesson from his family.

“My grandma is the one that taught me to always help strangers,” Lane said. “Always help somebody in need, and that is what I went with. I just helped him.”

The Seagoville Police Department said it plans to honor Lane at an upcoming city council meeting.