PORTAGE, Ind. – A man trapped in his crashed truck for almost a week is alive and getting treatment thanks to two good Samaritans who accidentally discovered the wreck near Portage, Indiana, on Tuesday.
The fishermen – a man and his son-in-law – took advantage of the unseasonably mild weather to walk along Salt Creek, scouting out potential fishing holes. They said they saw something shiny under the Interstate 94 bridge and went to investigate.
“It was mangled,” said Mario Garcia, one of the fishermen. “You couldn’t tell if it was a truck or not, or a boat. I looked inside and moved the white airbag. And there was a body in there. And I went to touch it, and he turned around, and that just almost killed me there because it was kind of shocking, but he was alive, and he was very happy to see us.”
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A relieved Matt Reum explained to them that he had been pinned in the crushed car since Dec. 20. His phone fell, and he could not reach it to call for help.
“He says he tried yelling and screaming, but nobody could hear him. There was nobody around,” Garcia said. “He said to me that he had almost lost all hope because nobody was there.”
The 27-year-old Indiana man said he couldn’t feel his extremities and that he broke his hand. The fishermen called the police and waited with Reum until help arrived.
“He was a young guy, and it looked like he was really fighting to be there just to stay around,” Garcia said. “He didn’t want to go. So, he made a big effort, and I hope he makes it.”
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Crews had a tough time getting down to the creek with all their equipment. They spent hours cutting him from the vehicle in what Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield described as a “very trying extraction.”
Police described his injuries as “severe, potentially life-threatening.” Reum’s friend set up a GoFundMe page for medical expenses and wrote that he had broken bones throughout his body.
“His legs were stuck, and he was unable to move,” wrote friend Haley Traxler. “Due to that, he is looking at an amputation more than likely.”
Reum travels frequently for work. Investigators are still unsure why the truck ran off the road into a ditch, missing the guardrail.
“So he’s driving on the grass shoulder for a good length of time before he goes airborne down into the creek where he rolls, probably several times and goes across the creek,” Fifield said. “And then it rolled underneath the bridge.”
No one reported the crash on the interstate just a mile from an exit.
Officials said the recent mild weather in northern Indiana, which is typically closer to freezing this time of year, likely helped Reum survive his ordeal.
“It’s cold tonight, and I don’t believe that he would have made it through the night tonight,” Fifield said at a press conference. “It’s just incredible that these two gentlemen were where they were today.”
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The above-normal temperatures dropped below freezing the night the man was rescued. Until then, daytime temperatures were about 60 degrees, and evenings were in the 50s. Average high temperatures in Portage, about 12 miles east of Gary in northern Indiana, are in the mid-30s, with lows in the low 20s.
“Quite frankly, it’s a miracle that he’s alive in this weather,” Fifield said. “We’ve been lucky enough here this Christmas season that our temperatures have been, as you all know, above normal. So, that was working in this individual’s favor. I know last year, we had freezing cold and could have had very different circumstances.”