A pair of Indiana fishermen made a lifesaving catch Tuesday when they spotted a car wreck with the driver still trapped inside and clinging to life after crashing nearly a week earlier.
Indiana state authorities called it a “miracle” that the unidentified man was still alive after his car went off the highway and rested under a bridge on Interstate 94 last Wednesday.
First responders rushed to rescue the man Tuesday around 3:45 p.m. after heroes Nivardo Delatorre and his father-in-law Mario Garcia saw the vehicle near a creek as they searched for suitable fishing holes, according to reports.
The shininess of the car caught their eyes through the wooded area.
One of the men poked his head into the car where he saw the man’s body, believing he was dead.
“I went to touch it and he turned around,” Garcia said at a press conference streamed on ABC 7 Chicago. “And it almost killed me there because it was kind of shocking.”
“He was alive and he was very happy to see us, like he was really — I’ve never seen a relief like that,” he said. “He says that he tried yelling and screaming, but nobody would hear him. It just was quiet, just the sound of the water.”
The victim was pinned inside his seat and could not reach his cell phone following the crash, police said.
The two Good Samaritans called 911 and stayed by his side until first responders arrived.
Emergency crews cut the man, who is in his 20s, out of the wreckage with heavy machinery and airlifted him to South Bend Memorial Hospital in critical condition with potentially life-threatening injuries, police said.
Their rescue efforts took several hours due to the difficult terrain and the way the driver was trapped inside the mangled vehicle, according to the local station.
“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,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield said during a press conference.
“So that was working in this individual’s favor,” he added. “Last year we had freezing cold.”