A man trapped in a wrecked truck survived for days by filtering water from drainpipe and keeping warm under an air bag

By Christina Zdanowicz and Andy Rose, CNN

(CNN) — Unable to move his legs, Matt Reum used whatever he could reach with his hands while pinned inside a wrecked pickup truck for six days and waiting to be rescued.

First responders reached him Tuesday after a pair of fishermen spotted his smashed truck in a creek off Interstate 94 in northwest Indiana.

With no one in the vicinity and hours on his hands, the 27-year-old was forced to be resourceful.

“There was a drainpipe right above him, so there was rainwater coming down when it rained, and he would use his shirt to filter it while he drank it,” Zachary Swets with the Portage Fire Department told CNN affiliate WBBM Thursday.

“He also used an air bag that had deployed as blankets when he would get cold to stay warm, just trying to stay alive.”

Even though he was injured, Reum had his wits about him and decided to write about the ordeal in a journal, Swets said.

“As soon as I came up on him, he gave me his journal,” Swets told WBBM.

First responders said Reum was in good spirits despite it all while they worked to free him.

“He was smiling, laughing, making jokes,” Portage Fire Lt. Ross Steffel told WBBM.

One other thing stood out to rescuers – he kept asking for a Big Mac, they said.

Rescuers are ‘on the way, buddy’

Before first responders could arrive, his rescuers reassured the driver that help was on the way.

Nivardo Delatorre called 911 on Tuesday when he and his father-in-law, Mario Garcia, came upon the driver, who said he had been stuck there for days, unable to reach his phone. Delatorre and Garcia were there searching for fishing spots when they found him.

“They’re on the way, buddy. They’re on their way,” Delatorre shouted down to the man during a 911 call obtained by CNN Thursday.

Delatorre gave information to authorities while Garcia stayed with the man, who had unknown injuries but told the men he couldn’t feel his legs. His legs could be broken, Delatorre told 911.

“You guys might need the Jaws of Life to open the doors,” Delatorre told the dispatcher. “His truck’s pretty wrecked.”

Delatorre repeated some of the details to the dispatcher, the shock and surprise evident in his voice.

“I’m surprised nobody else seen him,” he said. “There’s guys fishing down here and I just walked up and I seen the truck underneath the bridge. I thought it was kind of weird.”

Something shiny caught their eye

The pair of fishermen originally spotted something shiny in the creek while scouting fishing holes near Portage, about 40 miles southeast of Chicago. As they approached, they saw it was part of the mangled truck.

Garcia said when they reached the truck, he pushed back the air bag, discovering a person sitting in the driver’s seat. He assumed the person was dead, he said, but he touched the man’s shoulder.

“He swung around,” Garcia said. “He woke up.”

Reum, of Mishawaka, told the fishermen he had been trapped there, tightly pinned in his seat under the bridge since December 20, Garcia recalled later at a news conference held by state police.

By the time the fishermen found him, Reum “had almost lost all hope because nobody was there,” Garcia said the driver told him.

While they waited for professional rescuers, Reum thanked the men repeatedly, Garcia recalled. “He was alive and he was very happy to see us. I’ve never seen relief like that,” he said.

Temperatures in Porter County had reached a low of 29 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days.

“It’s a miracle that he’s alive in this weather,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield said at a news conference.

He has a long road to recovery

It’s not clear what caused the crash.

It appears the truck ran off I-94, missed the guardrail, went airborne, rolled down into the creek and came to rest under the bridge.

Once emergency crews arrived, they had a hard time getting the equipment to the accident site, authorities said.

I-94’s westbound lanes at mile marker 20 had to be closed Tuesday afternoon as crews worked to free the driver and get him to a helicopter. Reum made it to a hospital hours later, police said.

Reum, a welder, has “always been a positive, kind and energetic person,” Boilermakers Local 374’s Brad Sievers told CNN in a statement.

He has broken bones and injuries to his legs that could require surgeries, according to Reum’s union of eight years and a GoFundMe account started to help with his medical bills and recovery.

Reum’s condition was upgraded to serious Thursday evening at Memorial Hospital of South Bend, Beacon Health System said in a statement. CNN reached out to the union Thursday for updates.

A statement released by the union on behalf of Reum said he “wants to thank everyone for the outpouring of support and all the well-wishes, including the good Samaritans who found him, the first responders and his caregivers at Memorial Hospital.”

He asked for time to process what happened and for time to rest and heal, the statement said. “Matt knows he has a story to tell, and when he is ready, he plans to share details of that experience.”

“No matter how tough things get, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes in the least expected way,” Reum said in the statement.

CNN’s Amanda Jackson, Nouran Salahieh, Caroll Alvarado, Taliah Miller and CNN meteorologist Robert Shackelford contributed to this report.

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