MANCHESTER -- Divers recovered the body of a father who rescued his two children after their car skidded into a pond, but then vanished in the murky water.

The 37-year-old man might have drowned after he smashed out a window of the submerged car in the effort to save his children Tuesday, said David Tillman, Ontario County's undersheriff.

One of the children, a 3-year-old, suffered life-threatening injuries, Tillman told the Daily Messenger newspaper. The other child, believed to be 13, was recovering at a hospital, he said.

The teenager was able to swim to shore and raise the alarm at a nearby home. He apparently told sheriff's deputies he saw his father trying to swim his brother to shore, the newspaper reported.

The car slid off the side of a rural road early Tuesday afternoon near this village, which is 24 miles southeast of Rochester. It careered down an embankment and into a small pond.

The body of the father, who was not immediately identified, was recovered nearly four hours later, about an hour after a rescue crew pulled the empty car from the water.