TWO hero passers-by rescued a man from his car after it smashed through bollards and plunged into a lake.

Greg White and Joel Colbran leapt straight into action when they saw the car in the water.

They stripped down to their underpants and jumped in to help.

The car had overturned in the lake at Loxwood, near Billingshurst.

Greg, 32, a geologist from Surrey, saw the incident unfold.

He said: “I was on the way to work when I saw this car come around the corner as I pulled up at the junction and then I saw it go up the grass verge and into the pond.

“At that stage, I pulled into the layby and got on my phone to call 999 straight away.

“The strange thing was I couldn’t describe the location at first because I was just in such a state of shock.

“Another man who heard what happened came to help so I handed my phone to him and asked him to explain what happened to the operator.

“I initially stood at the edge of the pond to see if someone was going to come out of the car, but it soon became clear this wasn’t going to happen so I stripped down to my boxers and jumped in.”

They got the driver, a 31-year-old man, out of the car and he was put in the recovery position.

Someone else at the scene gave him CPR.

He was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and transferred to St Thomas in London where he is in a serious but stable condition.

Joel, 18, arrived at the scene shortly after Greg.

The aviation sales executive from Loxwood said: “It was such a shock when I realised what was going on that the adrenalin just took over and we did what we had to do without even having time to think about it.

“I saw Greg jump into the water and I knew I couldn’t let him go in alone so I jumped in after him.

“At this point we didn’t know how many people were in the car – we just knew we had to get whoever was in there out as quickly as we could. Greg got to the car before me and it wasn’t fully submerged at that point so we managed to get the door open, but it was so murky we couldn’t see anything or anyone inside.

“I remember us both putting our hands inside the car and waving them around under the water, trying to feel something, at which point Greg came across a person’s arm.”

Police praised the men’s response.

PC Jon Bennion-Jones of Arundel Roads Policing Unit, said: “The swift actions of these two men should be commended.

“The driver is very fortunate there were people immediately there to help and that no one else was involved or injured. There is now an investigation to determine the cause.”

He asked anyone with information to get in touch by emailing collision.appeal@sussex.pnn.police.uk, quoting serial 241 of 28/07.