Image caption A still from Mr Liu's dashcam video shows the car swerve off the road

A Chinese man has been awarded a lifetime supply of fish heads at a local restaurant, after he stopped his car en route to a fish head lunch to perform a dramatic underwater rescue.

Liu Xinting was driving on his lunch break from work when an oncoming car swerved off the road and into a lake.

Mr Liu dived in to the lake as the car sank, rescuing all four people inside including a pregnant woman.

Hearing of the rescue, a local company offered the unusual fish head reward.

"There was no time for me to think or be scared, the fastest thing I could do was save lives," Mr Liu told the local Hangzhou Daily.

"It is hazardous to jump into the water without taking off your shoes and clothes," he said. "But the situation was too urgent."

Image caption The red sedan is seen submerged in the lake

Video from Mr Liu's dashcam showed a pickup truck abandoning a dangerous overtaking move and swerving into the car, pushing it off the road.

The car plunged into man-made Qiandao Lake. Mr Liu rescued the occupants by pulling them out through the windows, Hangzhou Daily reported.

Mr Liu, who works for e-commerce giant Alibaba, was driving with colleagues at the time. The group had planned to enjoy cooked fish heads at a local restaurant.

The story made the local newspaper, and the Hangzhou Qiandao Lake Development Group has now offered to foot the bill for free fish heads forever.

An estimated 700 people are killed each day in traffic accidents, according to the World Health Organization.