Michael Wells didn't look before he leaped to what he thought would be safety from speeding highway traffic at the scene of an accident in Butler County early yesterday.

"I forgot I was on a bridge over the lake. I was planning to jump over the median into the other lanes. I was in the air before I realized where I was going," Mr. Wells, 48, of New Castle, said in a telephone interview from his hospital bed at UPMC Presbyterian.

Mr. Wells languished for more than an hour in the chilly waters of Lake Arthur before he was rescued by a Portersville volunteer firefighter in a pontoon boat.

He was taken by helicopter to the hospital, where he was in fair condition yesterday.

Mr. Wells was not injured in the traffic accident.

The father of seven children between ages 22 months and 26 years was on his way to work at Applied Technology Systems in East Butler. At about 5:40 a.m., before sunrise, Mr. Wells was munching on a fast-food sausage biscuit sandwich when he noticed the roadway felt a bit slick as he drove east on Route 422 in Muddycreek.

As he rounded a bend just before the span over Lake Arthur, he noticed other vehicles ahead of him swerving. He crashed into a disabled vehicle in the left lane on the bridge.

The driver of the other car, Sylvester Lane, 35, of New Castle, later said his car broke down and wouldn't start, and his emergency flashers did not work.

Mr. Wells turned on his flashers and both men exited their cars to inspect the damage and to wait for state police and his wife, both of whom he had called on his cell phone.

Traffic, however, continued to race past, narrowly missing the wreckage in the passing lane.

Traffic was too heavy for the men to scamper across the road to the safer berm beside the right lane.

At one point, the two drivers looked up and saw a car and a tractor-trailer. Neither appeared able to maneuver through the crash scene without striking something.

"We saw the tractor-trailer and we looked at each other, and we both started running" toward the concrete barrier, Mr. Wells said.

He hurled himself over the rail, and he was in the air before he realized there was nothing but water at least 20 feet below him.

"I said, 'Oh my God. I don't want to go like this.' I just prayed to God," Mr. Wells said.

"Before I hit the water I thought, 'What did I jump over for?'"

He found himself treading water in the middle of Lake Arthur, the shore too far away to swim to safety. Within 10 minutes of hitting the 50-degree water, his extremities began to go numb, he said.

He quickly tired of treading water, and wedged his 5-foot, 6-inch frame between two bridge supports. His feet were against one pillar, and his back pressed against the other with his head and chest barely above the surface.

Mr. Lane kept an eye on him from the bridge above.

"Sylvester was real worried the whole time. He was worried about how I felt," Mr. Wells said.

Rescuers had been dispatched from various fire departments in the vicinity. Initial reports mistakenly said the victim's car had plunged into the lake.

State police lowered a rope to Mr. Wells. By then, hypothermia was setting in, and he could not clutch the clasp to secure himself. He wrapped himself in the rope and waited.

"[The rescue] wasn't fast enough for me. Believe me. But I thank God they got there," he said. "It was getting so I couldn't hold on too much longer."

He said he is especially grateful to the firefighter who brought him aboard the boat.

A diver had entered the water from across the lake when the Portersville firefighter arrived.