JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Two days after workers watched stunned as a semi truck flew off a bridge and into Sisters creek, three men are being called heroes.

"We heard what sounded like steel ripping, and I looked overhead and the semi was over to my right, exiting the bridge," said Jeff Landers, who helped rescue the truck driver.

According to the crash report, driver James Gray of Green Cove Springs tried to avoid traffic stopped for a four-foot snake crossing the Heckscher Drive Bridge just before 7 p.m., sending the big rig into the creek.

Landers, who works as a commercial diver for Environmental Marine Construction, said he and two of his co-workers had been installing cables on the bridge when they received the shock of their lives.

"He came down with his 50-foot trailer behind him, and his forklift and just landed right nosedive in the middle of the channel," Lander said.

That's when Landers and his team sprung into action.

"I started dressing back into my dive gear as quick as I could, and then someone yelled, 'There he is,'" Landers said.

He said Gray had managed to pull himself out of the water and swim over to a fender under the bridge.

"I swam over to him. When I got to him, he was pretty much unconscious -- up and down. We did the Heimlich on him a couple of times and he started throwing up salt water," Landers said.

He said after they got Gray into a boat, they did all they could to keep the man safe until an ambulance arrived.

"It was a huge sigh of relief when the paramedics had him on oxygen over there," Landers said.

For Landers, the experience came full-circle. He and his co-workers helped crews remove Gray's truck from the water.

In the end, he said he and his co-workers shouldn't be called heroes.

"It's just what we're supposed to do for each other. It's nothing about heroes or anything. We're supposed to help each other, that's just the way it's supposed to go," Landers said.

Channel 4 was told Gray was hospitalized overnight at Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center and released at midday Tuesday.