MADISON, Wis. -- Police said a mother, her 2-year-old daughter and a friend who tried to save them were electrocuted when a power line fell into water near a Madison bus stop Wednesday.

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Madison police spokesman Mike Hanson said a group of friends were waiting for a bus when heavy rain hit the area Wednesday afternoon.

Demetrius Dobbs, 22, and his fiancée were boarding the bus as lightning hit a utility pole and caused a live wire to fall into the water. When he saw the mother and her daughter fall into the water, he jumped off the bus to try to save his friends, but all three were killed.

Dobbs' fiancée, Jamie McGee, said she can't shake what she saw Wednesday. She said the two were taking the bus home from a grocery store when they spotted her friend Lakisha Dancy and her two children waiting at the bus stop.

McGee said they watched as Dancy stepped off the grass into the water and then fall down. She said they thought she slipped and that's when Dobbs tried to help.

"When he stepped off the bus, he started shaking and hollering and he fell. I didn't know what happened. I pulled Maleek, (Dancy's) son, out of the water. He's all right. He's at the hospital," McGee said.

The bus driver also tried to help the victims, but he suffered some shocks and fell back into the bus. The driver was released from a hospital Thursday afternoon.

Police said Dobbs pulled Dancy's 7-year-old boy onto the bus after he suffered a shock. The boy is recovering in a hospital and is expected to be released soon.

The Dane County coroner identified the victims as Dobbs; Lakisha M. Dancy, 28; and Dancy's 2-year-old daughter, Maya Reese. All are from Madison.

Madison Fire Department spokeswoman Lori Wirth said that firefighters were on their way to another call on Wednesday when they saw the incident near the intersection. She said that they saw the street was flooded and that a bus was stopped in the flooding with water up to the vehicle's bumper.

But the firefighters weren't able to get near the bus to help until the power was shut off.

"There is a high probability of resuscitation for somebody who has been shocked, but with the fact that these victims were laying on a hot wire, we were unable to go and remove them from the wire. It's tough," said Lt. Tim Binger, a Madison firefighter who was with the first crew at the scene.

Binger said his crew didn't realize there were three victims on the ground until they were able to enter the scene. He said the 2-year-old was underneath her mother.

The intersection in north Madison was closed, and traffic was closed for several hours on Wednesday as authorities investigated. Hanson said that Madison police are leading the investigation.

"At this point it's a police investigation. We have detectives, investigators and command staff on scene. At this point, this is all we can investigate. It does not appear to be a criminal incident. It's just a horrific tragedy," Hanson said.

Hanson said the bus will be taken into storage as part of a routine procedure.

"A lot of officers were affected because they couldn't jump in there and help because the wires were still live. There are some heavy hearts," Hanson said.

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz came to the scene and said that officials believe the incident is a tragic accident.

"It's just a horrible tragedy with three people deceased. It appears to be a complete accident, a completely unlikely event, and we're all just thinking about the victims and their families right now," Cieslewicz said.

As details of the incident are pieced together, investigators have been working to collect any accounts from witnesses. Only a few onlookers said they saw the events unfold firsthand, and they said that everything happened in a matter of seconds.

"The bus caught on fire and then the people, too, because the lightning hit the pole and then the ground," said Stephanie Lincoln, who was at the scene at the time of the lightning strike. "And then everything was on fire with smoke and they just dropped."

"(The victims) were still on the ground while the smoke was covering them. I guess they died instantly because of the shock," said Derrick Williams, who was at the scene when the incident occurred. "(It happened in) less than three or four seconds. It was so quick, like, boom, boom, boom, boom."

MG&E spokesman Steve Kraus said that 1,800 customers were without service in that area of the city, but that half of those customers had power restored by about 5:40 p.m. Power was restored to remaining customers Wednesday night.

Sherman Avenue was reopened to traffic Wednesday night, WISC-TV reported.

Stay tuned to WISC-TV and Channel 3000 for continuing coverage.