A man who spent days trapped in his vehicle under an Indiana bridge is recovering.
The end of his ordeal came about 3:45 p.m. Tuesday after two men looking for fishing locations spotted the vehicle partially in a creek, WGN reported.
Nivardo Delatorre and his father-in-law Mario Garcia decided to check out the crashed vehicle and found the victim, expecting he was dead.
"I went to touch it, and he turned around. And it almost killed me there because it was kind of shocking," Garcia said at a press conference Tuesday night.
"He was alive, and he was very happy to see us — I’ve never seen a relief like that. He says that he tried yelling and screaming, but nobody would hear him. It just was quiet, just the sound of the water."
Firefighters from Portage and Burns Harbor worked for a time to extricate Matthew Reum, 27, and get him back up the embankment to the highway.
He was flown to a trauma center for treatment.
Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield said: “Quite frankly, it’s a miracle that he’s alive. In this weather. We’ve been lucky enough here this Christmas season, that our temperatures have been, as you all know, above normal. So that was working in this individual’s favor'”
