By David Eck
Enquirer contributor

St. Bernard Police Officer Bryant Kleinfeldt and Wyoming Officer Dorian Grubaugh, both of the Hamilton County Police Association Underwater Search and Recovery Unit, watch a tow truck lift a Ford Contour out of Little Duck Creek in Fairfax Friday afternoon. Photos by GLENN HARTONG/The Cincinnati Enquirer

Officers Kleinfeldt and Grubaugh work to attach tow cables to the car.

FAIRFAX - Standing in bone-chilling, waist-high water trying to help rescue a man he didn't even know, Gary Hodge thought of family - his own, and the victim's.

"If your family's in jeopardy, you'd want somebody to help," Hodge said Friday, several hours after he and three other passers-by worked to free a man whose car had crashed into Little Duck Creek and overturned. "I was thinking of his family."

Hodge and Norman Ritchie were on their way to a job site on Cincinnati's west side when they saw someone waving them down about 10:30 a.m.

As they ran toward the creek at Bancroft Street and Watterson Road, they saw the car. Along with two other men, they plunged into the freezing water and struggled to turn it upright and pull out the driver.

"We almost got it halfway up and it came back down," Hodge said. "The second time we tried, we got it up."

Hodge broke the driver's side window and held the man's head above the water as police officers and firefighters cut his seat belt and freed him.

"I don't know how in the heck they stayed in the water as long as they did," Fairfax Police Chief Rick Patterson said. "We needed their help. We couldn't have done it without them. They did a great job."

Charles Hickman, 48, of Madisonville, was flown to University Hospital, where he was in critical condition.

Hickman, alone in the car, was driving on Watterson when he lost control, crossed Bancroft, went down an embankment and into the creek, Patterson said.

The car ended up flipped in about 6 feet of water.

Fairfax police and deputies from the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office are investigating the crash.

Divers from the Hamilton County Police Association Underwater Search and Recovery Unit searched the car and creek for any additional victims, Patterson said.

Hodge and Ritchie, who were treated at the scene for exposure, said they just reacted when they came upon the wreck.

They wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

"It's all about helping somebody else," Hodge said. "I'm no hero. The guy in the car is the hero if he pulls through this. I prayed for him."

E-mail daveck@fuse.net