A driver who was stuck for days in a mangled car in Indiana before a man and his father-in-law found him had to have his leg amputated Wednesday.
Matt Reum, 27, had his leg amputated from the midshin down and is now in the intensive care unit, a spokesperson for the Boilermakers Local 374 union, which Reum is in, said in a statement to NBC News.
“Matt Reum 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,” Beacon Health System said in a statement.
Reum is still in critical condition, according to the statement.
“Matt knows he has a story to tell, and when he is ready, he plans to share details of that experience,” the statement said. Reum asked for time to process, rest and heal and privacy for himself and his family.
“No matter how tough things get, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes in the least expected way,” Reum said, according to the statement.
The man and his father-in-law found Reum inside the wreckage of his car while they were scouting fishing holes, authorities in Indiana said Tuesday. They discovered Reum, who they initially thought to be dead, in a shallow creek beneath an Interstate 94 bridge in the city of Portage.
Reum, unclear how long he had been trapped there, had multiple visible injuries, including a broken hand, according to Mario Garcia and son-in-law Nivardo De La Torre.
He was rushed by helicopter to a hospital where those injuries were assessed as life-threatening, Sgt. Glen Fifield, a regional spokesperson for the Indiana State Police, said.
Fifield, at a Tuesday news conference, estimated that Reum could have been at the site for nearly a week because the area is out of view of the interstate. He added that no accident reports in the area had been filed in recent days.
It remains unclear how exactly Reum ended up there or how he survived, with Fifield noting it’s unclear whether he was able to access food or water.
The mild Indiana weather this week also could have contributed to Reum’s survival. While temperatures this time last year reached freezing, the highs of 58 degrees and lows in the 40s are warmer than normal, according to Fifield.
“Quite frankly,” he said, “it’s a miracle he’s alive.”
It took rescuers from the Portage and Burns Harbor fire departments hours to free Reum from the car due to the intense wreckage and difficult location, Fifield said Tuesday.
Authorities think Reum was driving westbound on Interstate 94 near mile marker 19 when the vehicle went off the roadway for reasons not yet known.
“His vehicle missed that guardrail, so he’s driving on the grass shoulder before he goes airborne,” Fifield said. “His vehicle goes down into the creek, where he rolls several times. It rolled underneath the bridge.”
