Gene Bair had a little detour on his way to catch a plane Wednesday.
As he drove with his mother on U.S. 27 south of the Palm Beach County line, he saw a tractor-trailer veering, a silver flash and then a splash.
''I had a front-row seat,'' said Bair, 40, a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician for Belle Glade Fire-Rescue.
Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Roger J. Reyes said a southbound tractor-trailer rear-ended a van, forcing it off the road, where it overturned and came to rest on its roof in a ditch. Bair and other witnesses raced to the van, which had landed in more than a foot of water, and tried to reach anyone inside.
The van's driver, identified by FHP as Gustho Petit-Homme, 56, of Belle Glade, stuck his hand out a window.
'I said, `We're going to get you out, just relax,' '' Bair said.
Someone brought a hammer. Bair tried to use that to free Petit-Homme, but the witnesses finally ended up getting him out through a window.
Bair checked Petit-Homme and said he did not seem to have suffered any serious injuries. An off-duty Pembroke Pines Fire-Rescue battalion chief pulled up, Bair said, allowing him to leave so he could catch his flight to Washington, D.C.
''God looked after him today,'' Bair said of the driver.
Petit-Homme was taken to North Broward Medical Center near Pompano Beach, where he was treated and released.
Reyes said the driver of the tractor-trailer, John E. Nibbs, 47, of Tampa, was cited for failing to use due care and not having proof of insurance.
