By Katie Gibas, News10Now

A 75-year-old with Parkinson's helped save three lives on Friday. Ed Fillingham was on the shore of Lake Ontario when he heard the screams of three boaters in the water. Those three friends are here today because Fillingham took matters into his own hands.

Friday began like any other day for Douglass Daury, Amanda Roberts and Kiefer Hockey. The three friends decided to take their peddle boat out in Henderson Bay. But things quickly turned into a life and death situation.

"The current picked up and the next thing we knew, we were in the middle of the lake," said Amanda Roberts, stranded boater from Belleville, NY.

"The current was taking us farther and farther, and we started peddling and we weren't really going nowhere at all," said Douglass Daury, stranded boater from Gloversville, NY.

"The next thing I knew. The boat just flipped, and I flew over Doug's head, and then the boat hit Doug in the head," said Roberts. “We didn't really have time to think about anything. We just started swimming to shore, and that's when I started praying."

With the lake's temperature around forty degrees, both the boaters and the man who set out to save them, knew they did not have much time.

Ed Fillingham is 75 years old and has Parkinson’s, but that did not stop him from rowing out in his canoe to save the distressed boaters.

"They were hollering for help, "Help. We're drowning!" said Ed Fillingham, the boater's rescuer from Henderson, NY. "I said you get the canoe [to his daughter]. I'll get the paddle"

Fillingham and his daughter launched the canoe over a break wall in his backyard, and he began paddling out the 500 yards to the drowning boaters.

"He was glowing like an angel, and all of a sudden he was there," said Roberts.

"I got a hold of the girl by the hand, and every once in a while, I could feel her hand slipping out of mine, and I knew she was going down," said Fillingham.

"I was hoping that I could make it because I was already running out of breath real bad, and my head was tingling," said Daury. 

"He could hardly talk or nothing. I didn't dare let go of him because he would have went down," said Fillingham.

Fillingham and the three boaters say even a few minutes more, and this would be a very different story.

"I had about five minutes, and we would have lost all three of them," said Fillingham.

"I was holding onto the side of the boat, then I don't know. We just ended up getting in," said Kiefer Hockey, stranded boater from Henderson, NY.

"I really thought we were going to die. Doug was the worst. Kiefer's pretty strong, so he kept swimming. But I really thought Doug and I weren't going to make it," said Roberts.

"If they weren't young and in good health, this would be a different story," said Fillingham.

"Without him, we’d be in the bottom," said Daury.

"Thank you just doesn't cut it. Pretty much I owe him my life," said Roberts.

"I'm no hero. Would you leave them out there? Not me. I'd never leave anybody out there," said Fillingham.

The boaters say when their peddle boat was recovered; they gave it away because it reminded them too much of what happened on Friday, and they won't be going swimming any time soon.