A woman who crashed her car miraculously survived for nearly a week while trapped by drinking water from her sweatshirt.
Brieonna Cassell, 41, was found inside her vehicle partly submerged in a ditch in Brook, Indiana, on Tuesday after driving away from her mother’s home and going missing.
Cassell was not able to move and her phone ran out of power, and she it was a piece of clothing that ultimately saved her in an unusual way.
‘She was using her hoodie and wringing it to get a drink of water, trying to survive,’ her dad, Delmar Caldwell, told WLS.
(Picture: ABC 7)
‘She was in excruciating pain. She was screaming out for help. She could hear cars going by, but they couldn’t see her from the road.’
Northwest Indiana rescue teams and the Cassell family searched for her to no avail.
Then a man operating equipment for Deyoung Drainage spotted a Ford Taurus off of Country Road 600 south by Country Road 300 east and contacted his supervisor, Jeremy Vanderwall.
They went to look at the vehicle and discovered Cassell still conscious and audible.
(Picture: ABC 7)
Vanderwall, who is a volunteer fire chief, recounted telling her: ‘That’s you?’ and, ‘Your family’s been looking for you.’
‘There are posts everywhere on social media,’ he told her. ‘I can’t believe you’ve been in this long.’
Cassell’s father said she fell asleep while behind the wheel after visiting her mom’s home and a friend in Wheatfield and DeMotte and veered off road and into the deep ditch that was not visible from the roadway.
She was airlifted to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois, and treated for leg, rib and wrist injuries. She is in the intensive care unit and was scheduled to have surgery on Wednesday and possibly lose the lower parts of her legs. Despite that, her father said they are not giving up or losing hope.
(Picture: ABC 7)
‘We had thought the worst,’ he said. ‘It had gone through our minds so many times, but thank God.’
Her mother, Kim Brown, told the TV station she was grateful that her daughter ‘did what she could to survive’.
‘I am so glad she was found alive,’ said Brown, ‘And I just can’t wait to hug her and kiss her.’
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