FALL RIVER, Mass. -- A couple of Fall River men are being credited with saving the life of a baby who accidentally fell into a storm drain over the weekend.

The storm drain is covered now, but it was open enough and slippery enough on Saturday night for a 21-month-old baby to fall in after sliding out of a minivan in the area of Fourth and Morgan streets.

"They're made out of a granite stone, not cement. And it was wet because it was raining. So, you slip instantly. And a little baby like that, the way the van was parked, she got out of the sliding side door and she slipped," Bruce Hebert said.

Hebert and another man, Pedro Davila, heard the mother's cries for help. He immediately grabbed some tools and ran to the scene.

"I opened the manhole, he jumped in. If it wasn't for the two of us, that little girl wouldn't be well now. I was scared to death. I'm amazed that I didn't panic, 'cause there was a lot of people panicking," Hebert said.

When the men pulled the baby out, she was blue after being in the water for about a minute and a half. They started CPR immediately.

"That was like the most beautifulest thing in the world that anyone could ever see was that child blinking her eyes and coughing and fussing. That was the most beautiful thing in the world," Hebert said.

The baby, whose identity has not been released, was taken to Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence. She was expected to be OK.

Hebert, who said he has many medical and financial problems has sometimes wondered "why Jesus keeps me on this Earth."

He told a Fall River newspaper, “I got my answer tonight. It was to save that little girl.”