BADGER — A man floated about a mile down the Des Moines River in northern Webster County after his vehicle crashed into the chilly water Friday night.

Fort Dodge firefighters in a small boat brought him to safety.

The man was taken by ambulance to Trinity Regional Medical Center, according to Lt. Kevin Kruse of the Webster County Sheriff’s Department. Kruse did not identify the man. He said the man was the lone occupant of the vehicle.

The crash happened at about 7 p.m. near a bridge that carries 120th Street over the Des Moines River. The location is about one mile east of U.S. Highway 169. A van apparently crashed through a guard rail at the east end of the bridge, traveled down a hill and landed upright in the water.

”The report we had was that someone saw him floating down the river,” Kruse said.

Rescuers from multiple agencies spread out along the river to search for him.

A boat from the Fort Dodge Fire Department was placed in the river at a ramp on 130th Street.

Within about three minutes of heading out into the river in the boat, firefighters Alan Angstrom and Mike Wiltzius spotted the man along the east bank of the river.

Fort Dodge Assistant Fire Chief Lenny Sanders said the man was about 150 yards north of the boat ramp.

Kruse said the man traveled ”nearly a mile” from the place where the van went into the water.

Angstrom and Wiltzius pulled the man into the boat and returned to the ramp, where he was quickly loaded into an ambulance.

”He had no energy left,” Sanders said.

He added that the man was at great risk for hypothermia, which is a severe drop in body temperature, because he was in the cold water.

The crash remained under investigation by the Webster County Sheriff’s Department late Friday night.

Sheriff’s deputies were assisted at the scene by firefighters from Badger, Clare and Fort Dodge, and paramedics from Trinity Regional Medical Center.