HOUMA - Police wrote a man a ticket after they helped save him from drowning inside his car, which plummeted off a bridge and into a bayou after he failed to stop for a barricade.

The Houma Police Department said good Samaritans had to help first responders fish the 62-year-old man out of Bayou Terrebonne on Thursday after he tried to cross the Daigeville Bridge. The lift bridge was up to make room for a large boat that was passing through the waterway, and the vehicle drove right off the bridge and into the water. 

Emergency personnel and passersby were able to move the man to the top of a bulkhead until a police boat picked him up and took him back to dry land. The man was checked out at hospital and sent home later that same day.

Police later issued him a traffic citation for careless operation.