"I was just the right place at the right time. A lot of other people would have done the same."

The humblest of words from a man some are calling a "hero."

Twenty-year-old Cody Horn was driving down Litchfield Road in Jonesville Wednesday when he saw people helping a woman, floating face down in a pond, and a car, sinking, with a panicked little girl pressed against the window inside.

"i knew i couldn't live with myself if she'd died," Horn says.

Not a father yet himself, this young man's paternal instinct set in.

While two other men rescued the unconscious mother, Horn ran to his car, grabbed a maglite and jumped in the water to save the little girl.

"I reached in, grabbed her coat, I picked her up out of the water," he recalls. "She took a deep breath and started crying. It was the hugest relief of my life."

The victims were Bertha and Ashley Martin, a mother and daughter from Jonesville, whose car hit black ice and flew right into a freezing pond.

State police tell us if it hadn't been for the people there who so quickly rescued the mother and daughter, the two likely wouldn't have survived.

Family friend Kristin Klump says Bertha is in stable condition, but not yet aware of what's going on. But as soon as she finds out what happened...

"Knowing Bertha she'll be hugging them," Klump says. "There won't be enough words or actions to thank them."

But Horn says all he wants is to make sure the family is alright.