An Indiana man was driving to his best friend's funeral in December when an animal caused him to swerve and crash his car under a bridge next to a creek. A month later, 27-year-old Matthew Reum describes what it was like to be trapped in his truck — which looked like a pile of shredded scrap metal — for six long days.
"The six days I was down there were the longest, scariest, most terrifying days of my life," he said on Good Morning America. "Because that day, I had given up hope." (See GMA video below.)
At first he screamed for help, which went on for hours, until his voice ran out, according to the Daily Beast via NBC News. But nobody was around to hear him. "I would yell and nothing," he said.
"I didn't eat anything," he continued, explaining that for six days he was wedged inside his crumpled truck, unable to extricate himself. But he was able to use his clothes to sponge up rainwater that leaked into his car. "I would basically suck the water out of my sweatpants," he said.
As the days bled into the nights, "his thoughts turned dark," and he even thought about suicide. "There was just that voice in my head of my best friend just saying 'stop,'" he said. "And you know, it's something I don't wish on anybody to ever have to go through a situation like that."
And then, as he was barely hanging on, two fishermen happened to spot him and came to the rescue.
From Daily Beast:
Reum was miraculously saved on Dec. 26 after a pair of fisherman spotted the metal of his truck glistening as the sun set. They approached the mangled vehicle and discovered what they feared to be a dead body, but Reum reacted when he was touched.
"When they showed up, I thought I was hallucinating," Reum told NBC.
An official from the Indiana State Police said in December that Reum likely wouldn't have survived another night in the frigid weather had the fisherman not spotted him, adding, "It's a miracle he's alive."
Reum agrees it's a miracle. He described how torturous his days trapped in the truck were, saying he could hear the constant flow of traffic above him, occasional voices from a nearby trailer park, and even sirens, but the emergency vehicles weren't traveling to him. The short days of winter blended into night, and he quickly lost track of how long he'd been stranded. …
Reum's other injuries included a second broken leg that's expected to heal, as well as a broken hand. A GoFundMe fundraiser to help with his medical bills had raised over $100,000 by Monday.
