One thing shiny close to a creek and a case of curiosity led two Indiana fishermen Tuesday to a 27-year-old man who had been preventing for his life for days alone in a mangled truck – a discovery that state police are hailing as a miracle.
Mario Garcia and his son-in-law Nivardo Delatorre had been scouting Salt Creek close to the northwestern Indiana metropolis of Portage for potential fishing holes and on the brink of name it a day when one thing shiny within the distance caught their consideration, Garcia stated at a information convention held by state police. Curious, they went to discover it and realized it was a automobile wreck.
The wrecked pickup truck was below Interstate 94’s bridge over the creek. Garcia moved an airbag out of the way in which and noticed what he thought was somebody useless within the driver’s seat.
“The second I touched the shoulder, he swung round – he awoke,” Garcia stated.
Startled, however targeted on serving to the younger man, Garcia requested Delatorre to name for assist and the pair stayed with the person till rescuers got here to drag him out.
“He was alive and he was very comfortable to see us,” Garcia stated, recalling the person thanking them repeatedly. “I’ve by no means seen reduction like that.”
The person, Matthew R. Reum of Mishawaka, may need been there for per week and suffered some “extreme, doubtlessly life-threatening accidents,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield stated on the information convention.
Reum survived partially by consuming rain water, state police stated in a information launch. “The desire to outlive this crash was nothing wanting extraordinary,” police stated.
“It’s a miracle that he’s alive in this climate,” Fifield stated. Temperatures in Porter County, the place the wreck occurred, had reached a low of 29 levels in current days.
The person advised the fishermen he had been trapped there since December 20, tightly pinned in his seat within the crushed truck and unable to achieve his cellphone, in response to Garcia.
“He says he tried yelling and screaming, however no one would hear him. It was simply quiet – simply the sound of the water,” Garcia recalled the person telling him.
“He stated to me that he’s been there for a very long time that he had nearly misplaced all hope as a result of no one was there,” Garcia stated.
Reum was taken to a hospital Tuesday for remedy of his accidents, police stated. It’s nonetheless unclear what brought on the crash, however Fifield stated it seems the person’s truck ran off I-94, missed the guardrail, went airborne, rolled down into the creek and got here to relaxation below the bridge.
Police stated they obtained no experiences of a crash and even when they did, the wreckage couldn’t be seen from the bridge.
“I appeared over that bridge and you may’t see it,” Fifield stated. “I walked down on the east facet of the terrain and I’m wanting and I nonetheless couldn’t see it.”
It was troublesome to get tools to the wreckage web site, and took hours to get the person out, Fifield stated. I-94’s westbound lanes at mile marker 20 were closed on Tuesday afternoon as crews labored to free the person and transport him to a helicopter, which might take him to the hospital.
Had the fishermen not discovered him once they did, the person might not have made it, Fifield stated.
“It’s chilly tonight,” the sergeant stated. “I don’t consider he would’ve made it by means of the evening tonight, that’s my private opinion.”
Garcia stated he and his son-in-law they felt lucky that their curiosity led them to the younger man.
“Is it a miracle? I don’t know. However I’m simply glad that that we had been capable of finding him,” Garcia stated.
CNN’s Taliah Miller and CNN Meteorologist Robert Shackelford contributed to this report.
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