A Lawrence man says he’s “95 percent sure” that the man who led rescue efforts during a flash flood Saturday on the Kansas Turnpike was 31-year-old Al Larsen of Fort Worth, Texas, whose body was recovered Tuesday.

“I’d really like his family and loved ones to know that he spent his last moments trying to help others the best way he could,” said Ryan Lane, a Lawrence resident who helped a then-unidentified man carry several stranded motorists to safety.

Lane identified Larsen after seeing a photograph that Larsen’s family provided to a Forth Worth television station.

Lane said he expected to make contact with Larsen’s family members today.

“I’d just like them to know,” he said.

Lane, 24, was driving back to Lawrence from Wichita about 9 p.m. Saturday when he suddenly found himself in about 2 feet of water.

Forced to abandon his 1994 Mercury Cougar, he began helping others free themselves from their cars in the rapidly rising water.

Lane said that he and a man he thinks was Larsen had helped an elderly couple, an elderly man, and a pair of 16-year-old girls to safety when the rising water swept them over the concrete median.

When the two regained their footing, Lane said the man told him to go tell motorists to begin backing up.

At that point, Lane said, they parted company.

“I didn’t see him again after that,” Lane said.

Larsen’s wife, Elizabeth-Anne Larsen, told authorities her husband called her Saturday night on his cell phone and said he was caught in a flood and that she needed to come get him.

Larsen’s family members Wednesday were en route to Fort Worth and could not be reached for comment.

Also killed in the flooding were four young children, Zachary Rogers, 5; Nicholas Rogers, 3; and Alenah Rogers, 1; and their mother, Melissa Rogers, all of Glenaire, Mo. Their father, Robert Rogers, survives.