A quick-thinking construction worker has saved a man from drowning with an esky.

Ben Dennis was working on his Newhaven cafe when he heard splashing off a nearby jetty.

When he spotted a man struggling, he jumped into the water with an esky as a flotation device.

Ben told Nick McCallum he managed to keep the man afloat until someone could arrive with a boat.

‘He was pretty much dead,’ he said.

‘It was a lucky outcome. A few seconds later, he would have been gone.’

Click play to hear Ben’s story