(NewsNation) — A man who was trapped in the wreckage of his truck for six days was miraculously rescued after being found by two men searching for a fishing hole.
Matt Reum’s truck went off the interstate and crashed under a bridge in Indiana on Dec. 20. The 27-year-old man was pinned in his seat and unable to reach his cell phone. He was spotted by two fishermen who initially thought he was dead and survived the six days by drinking rain water.
Sgt. Glen Fifield of the Indiana State Police said Reum is in good spirits now that he has been rescued and taken to a hospital for treatment. Fifield told NewsNation first responders had a challenge getting Reams out of the wreck.
“It was really challenging for the first responders and fire departments that went there to get their equipment down into the ravine, under the bridge in the creek area and extricate him from the vehicle,” Fifield said.
Fifield said it’s difficult to say how long Reum would have survived if he hadn’t been spotted by the two men.
“We’d had a really mild winter here in northwest Indiana, in the Chicago area this winter, and that played a significant role in his survival,” he said. “Combined with his will to live, (that) really made this a Christmas miracle.”
Investigators aren’t sure what caused Reum to go off the road or how he missed a long stretch of guardrail that would have prevented his car from going under the bridge where it was not visible to those passing by on the road.
He credits the two men who decided to investigate a strange flash of metal they saw with Reum’s rescue.
“They almost didn’t go and look at it,” Fifield said. “But their curiosity, as I said, got the best of them. They went over to look at it and they realized it was a vehicle.”
Once the men realized the airbags had deployed, the looked further, initially thinking Reum was dead but when they touched him, he responded.
“It literally scared them half to death,” Fifield said. “They immediately wanted to get him help.”