'Miracle' on US highway: Man found trapped in crashed pickup truck for nearly a week and survived by drinking rainwater before two fishermen noticed the wreckage of his vehicle.
Two men were fishing for fish in a river in Indiana near Chicago on Tuesday when they spotted something shiny where the river flows under Interstate 94. A vast artery connecting the Great Lakes region with 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 woke up. He was alive and very happy to see us,” Mario Garcia, who went fishing with his son-in-law, said at a news conference. “I’ve never seen anyone so relieved.”
They immediately called the emergency services, who were only able to intervene with difficulty – images released by the police showed the vehicle embedded in an embankment between the river and the foot of the bridge.
The 27-year-old man was then flown to a nearby hospital, with emergency services reporting “serious injuries” and a life-threatening prognosis for him, said Glen Fifield of the Edmonton police at a press conference in the state of Indiana on Tuesday evening.
“It is a miracle that this gentleman is still alive today and that these two gentlemen made it to this creek,” he added.
For reasons that are still unclear, the pickup ended up under the highway bridge on which it was traveling. According to authorities, the carcass was barely visible from the road.
The miracle victim told the good Samaritans who rescued him that he had been stuck there since last Wednesday, almost a week ago, and could not reach his phone. “He said he screamed and screamed, but no one heard him.”
And if he probably owes his salvation to the mild temperatures of the Christmas weekend this year, the cold would come on Tuesday night and “he probably wouldn't last another day,” Mario Garcia explained again on American television.