Police in Indiana are lauding the actions of two quick-thinking good Samaritans after they spotted a crashed vehicle under a bridge on Interstate 94 in Porter County, with the driver having been trapped in the truck for days.
According to police, the driver of the truck told his rescuers that he had been trapped in the vehicle for six days.
“It’s a miracle that he’s alive,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield said. “We’ve been lucky enough in this Christmas season that our temperatures have been above normal. That was working in this individual’s favor.”
According to police, the truck veered off the westbound lanes of the highway and became trapped on a rocky embankment underneath a bridge and adjacent to a nearby creek.
The driver was pinned inside the vehicle, and was unable to reach his phone after the crash.
Two good Samaritans told police they had seen the glint of sunlight reflecting off the vehicle late Wednesday afternoon, and as they approached the vehicle, one of the men saw a person’s body inside.
“We were getting to the fishing hole, and the truck caught our curiosity,” Mario Garcia told reporters. “We went up to it and looked inside and moved the airbag and there was a body in there. I went to touch it, and he turned around. It almost killed me because it was so shocking.”
Garcia said that the man was overjoyed to see the pair, and told them he had crashed on Wednesday.
“He said to me that he had been there for a long time, and that he had almost lost all hope,” he saqid. “One more day, and something would have been very different for him.”
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter.
The driver was airlifted to a hospital in South Bend with life-threatening injuries, with Fifield saying that the rocky embankment and the severity of damage to the truck helped to complicate rescue efforts.
“This was a very trying extrication, and the Portage Fire Department and Burns Harbor Fire Department did a phenomenal job,” he said. “Their communities should be proud of them.”
The vehicle was somehow pinned underneath the bridge on the opposite side of the water, but it wasn’t visible from the roadway above, meaning that the fishermen were the only individuals who would have been able to spot it.
“It’s almost impossible how he got there, but that’s where he ended up,” Garcia said.
It’s not clear just how severe the driver’s injuries are, according to officials.
“(These are) severe, potentially life-threatening injuries. It’s going to take some time to heal,” Fifield said. “Our thoughts are with him.”
