It was 4 a.m., and Mike Broadway had already spent most of the night pumping out basements and patching roofs, helping where he could as his hometown of Dawson Creek flooded.

He pulled onto Eighth Street, normally a main route through town.

The road had become a river and its edge a waterfall — that's where the white sedan was stuck, with three people inside.

He stopped his truck and waded over, with water raging up to his knees and higher.

"It was just the way I was raised. You help," said Broadway. "I drive a big truck so I wasn't worried about getting washed away."

The white Buick that was stuck along Eighth Street in Dawson Creek last night. (@NuclearMoose/Twitter)

'Please do something!'

The driver of the car, 85-year-old Mary Daub, was taking her daughter and son in-law home after they helped her with a flooding basement.

"They were pretty scared and didn't know what was happening," said the driver's son, Fred Daub. "Luckily that gentleman stopped and helped them out."

Mike Broadway, seen here with his wife Amy, helped rescue three people stranded in a car on a flooded road in Dawson Creek, B.C. last night. (Mike Broadway/Facebook)

As Broadway walked up, he recalls her hollering, 'Please do something!"

"'Don't worry,' I said, 'I'll get you out,'" he remembers saying.

Opening the driver's door could risk the vehicle filling with water, which might tip it over the edge, said Broadway. So he got them to open the passenger side first, then he got Daub from the driver's seat.

"She was quite distraught so I just kind of bear-hugged her and picked her out of the car."

'All I could imagine was them getting swept away'

Meanwhile, Tim Tom had also pulled up, concerned for the safety of the people in the white Buick, but hesitant to get out of his truck because his wife and kids were in the vehicle.

After Broadway rescued the elderly driver, Tom saw the two passengers try to get out, stumbling in the water — steps away from a steep drop off.

"I'd seen them getting out and all I could imagine was them getting swept away. So I knew I had to do something," Tom told CBC. And I just got there as quick as I could."

Tom drove closer, hopped out, and linked arms with the passengers to help them reach Broadway's truck.

"I just want to thank Mike for being the first one there," said Tom.

The two rescuers shook hands, and Broadway drove the trio home while Tom rushed back to his family in the truck.

An aerial view of the flood damage in Dawson Creek, B.C., on Thursday. (City of Dawson Creek)

Family doing fine

Fred Daub told CBC News his mother is doing fine after getting some rest and talking about the experience with friends.

"She's fine. She was really shaken up this morning, but she's good," he said. "They had a pretty long night."

Daub said his mother didn't want to speak to the media about the incident because ​"she's not too much on being famous or anything," but he said she intends to thank Broadway and the other bystander who helped her.

"Thank you very much. It was greatly appreciated," he said. They were in a situation that could have turned — we could have lost them."

"There are good people in the world."

Others passed by

When called by CBC Radio to describe the rescue, Broadway said several times he didn't want to "make a big deal" about it.

There was the other helper, and the cliff wasn't as dramatically eroded at 4 a.m. as the daylight photos later showed, he explained.

But the office manager at the towing company that later recovered the car sees it differently.

"Numerous vehicles saw her stranded there and passed her," said Heather Loiselle of Swede's Towing. "And finally someone stopped and assisted her and got her to safety."

With files from Andrew Kurjata