Fishermen investigating one thing shiny led to ‘miracle’ rescue of Indiana man trapped in crashed truck for days, police say

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 have been scouting Salt Creek close to the northwestern Indiana metropolis of Portage for potential fishing holes and on the point of name it a day when one thing shiny within the distance caught their consideration, Garcia mentioned 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 beneath 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 mentioned.

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 pleased to see us,” Garcia mentioned, 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 every week and suffered some “extreme, doubtlessly life-threatening accidents,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield mentioned on the information convention.

Reum survived partially by consuming rain water, state police mentioned in a information launch. “The desire to outlive this crash was nothing in need of extraordinary,” police mentioned.

“It’s a miracle that he’s alive in this climate,” Fifield mentioned. Temperatures in Porter County, the place the wreck occurred, had reached a low of 29 levels in latest days.

The person instructed the fishermen he had been trapped there since December 20, tightly pinned in his seat within the crushed truck and unable to achieve his telephone, in response to Garcia.

“He says he tried yelling and screaming, however no person would hear him. It was simply quiet – simply the sound of the water,” Garcia recalled the person telling him.

“He mentioned to me that he’s been there for a very long time that he had virtually misplaced all hope as a result of no person was there,” Garcia mentioned.

Reum was taken to a hospital Tuesday for remedy of his accidents, police mentioned. It’s nonetheless unclear what brought on the crash, however Fifield mentioned 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 beneath the bridge.

Police mentioned they obtained no studies of a crash and even when they did, the wreckage couldn’t be seen from the bridge.

“I regarded over that bridge and you’ll’t see it,” Fifield mentioned. “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 website, and took hours to get the person out, Fifield mentioned. 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 after they did, the person might not have made it, Fifield mentioned.

“It’s chilly tonight,” the sergeant mentioned. “I don’t consider he would’ve made it via the night time tonight, that’s my private opinion.”

Garcia mentioned 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 have been capable of finding him,” Garcia mentioned.

CNN’s Taliah Miller and CNN Meteorologist Robert Shackelford contributed to this report.

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