‘Miracle’ on US highway: Man found trapped in crashed pickup truck for nearly a week, surviving by drinking rainwater, before two fishermen noticed the wreck of his vehicle.
Two men were fishing for fish in a river in the US state of Indiana near Chicago on Tuesday when they spotted something shiny where the river passes under Interstate 94. immense artery that connects the Great Lakes region to the northern plains of the United States.
As they approach, they notice a man trapped behind an airbag.
“The moment I touched his shoulder, he turned around, he was waking up. He was alive, and he was very happy to see us,” Mario Garcia, who went fishing with his son-in-law, told a press conference. “I’ve never seen anyone so relieved.”
Immediately, they called emergency services, which intervened with difficulty – images released by the police showed the vehicle embedded in an embankment, between the river and the bases of the bridge.
The 27-year-old man was then airlifted to a nearby hospital, with emergency services reporting “serious injuries” and his life-threatening prognosis, Glen Fifield of the Edmonton police said at a press conference on Tuesday evening. State of Indiana.
“It’s a miracle that this gentleman is alive today, and that these two gentlemen made it to this creek,” he added.
For reasons that remain to be determined, the pickup ended up under the highway bridge on which it was traveling. Its carcass was almost impossible to see from the roadway, according to authorities.
The miracle victim told the good Samaritans who rescued him that he had been stuck there since last Wednesday, almost a week ago, and that he couldn’t reach his phone. “He said he screamed and screamed, but no one heard him.”
And if he probably owes his salvation to mild temperatures during the Christmas weekend this year, the cold was going to arrive during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, and “he was probably not going to last another day”, declared Mario Garcia again on American television.
