PORTAGE, Ind. (AP) — A 27-year-old man survived for six days on only rainwater while pinned tightly inside his crashed pickup truck beneath a highway bridge in northwest Indiana, police said.
His ordeal ended when two men scouting for fishing spots Tuesday afternoon noticed the badly damaged vehicle, its white airbag deployed, and reached inside.
“They touched the body, and the person turned their head and started talking to them. So, that got a little rise out of them,” Sgt. Glen Fifield of the Indiana State Police told local news outlets.
The truck went off Interstate 94 ahead of a bridge over Salt Creek, missing the guardrail and likely rolling several times before landing on the other side of the creek, hidden out of sight from the road above, Fifield said at a news conference.
Matthew R. Reum, of Mishawaka, Indiana, was freed from the wreckage Tuesday evening by first responders working under bright floodlights, then airlifted to a hospital in South Bend with life-threatening injuries, Fifield said.