A mother who was trapped in her car survived for nearly one week by sucking water from a jumper she dipped into a stream.
Brieonna Cassell broke both of her legs after she fell asleep at the wheel and crashed her car in Brook, Indiana. She was somehow found conscious and able to speak despite having been stuck in the vehicle for six days.
The 41-year-old mum was able to dip her hooded jumper into the water and get it to her mouth, authorities said today. It kept her alive until a man operating drainage equipment saw the car off road near the town of Brook, Indiana, on Tuesday.
Brieonna, who also fractured her wrist, was extricated and airlifted to hospital, where she has had surgery. However, “there is some concern with the healing of her legs,” according to Brieonna’s mother, who shared an update on social media today.
Brieonna had been reported missing by family members days before she was found, police said. The woman, from Wheatfield, Indiana, had been trapped since Thursday when she fell asleep at the wheel and her vehicle veered off a road and into a ditch beside the tiny stream.
Her car was not visible from the road so, despite being conscious, Brieonna had to endure six days trapped as temperatures plunged to -3.3C over the weekend in the Midwestern state, which borders Illinois.
Newton County Sheriff Shannon Cothran said: “She was stuck in the car and could not get out, but she was able to reach the water from the car.” It helped hydriate the mum, who is now said to be in a stable condition. The sheriff added: “Her outlook for recovery is good but it will be a long road to recovery.”
Desperate family members had spent the days in which Brieonna was missing searching for the woman, walking for miles along roads and ditches. Now relatives in Wheatfield have created a GoFundMe page to help pay her medical bills.
The webpage reads: “She used her sweater to get water, by sticking it out a crack in the door and pulling it back in and drinking from it. Luckily, someone on a tractor saw her car and called his supervisor.”
Brieonna’s ordeal comes after a car pulled from a river, also in the US, was thought to belong to a family who vanished 66 years ago – giving the historic case miraculous hope.
Police said “everything matches” as they linked the Ford station wagon to the one Ken and Barbara Martin were driving back in 1958 in Oregon, US. The couple and their children disappeared while on a trip to collect Christmas decorations in December that year.
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