Zack Swets, a Portage firefighter/paramedic, was one of the initial first responders to arrive on the scene after a call came into 911 dispatch that there was a car in a ditch under Interstate 94 a…
Zack Swets, a Portage firefighter/paramedic, was one of the initial first responders to arrive on the scene after a call came into 911 dispatch that there was a car in a ditch under Interstate 94 and it had been there for multiple days.
He and other first responders didn’t know at first how long Matt Reum, 27, of South Bend, had been trapped in his pickup along Salt Creek under the interstate. That information, Steffel said, came as he and other rescuers worked to get him out of the truck.With humor, gravity and expletives, Reum recounted his story of survival in a lengthy interview with the Post-Tribune.
Matt Reum of South Bend, who spent six days trapped in his truck under a bridge on Interstate 94 in December, walks in Valparaiso on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. He ended up on the shoulder of the interstate and bounced off a guardrail, which took off the tire on the front driver’s side of Reum’s truck. Reum, who said he was wearing his seatbelt at the time of the crash, went to sleep and awoke at early dawn.
He kept calling for help, resting intermittently to save his strength, and knew his situation wasn’t good because of where he was under the bridge. The windows and sunroof in his truck had shattered so he could hear cars overhead and the nearby creek, but nobody could hear or see him. Matt Reum of South Bend, who spent six days trapped in his truck under a bridge on Interstate 94 in December, speaks about his ordeal in Valparaiso on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024.
“It filtered it enough that I could actually drink it and I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up,” Reum said. “Things got dark. Those sweatpants that saved my life, I tried to end my life twice ,” he said, adding he heard someone, perhaps his best friend’s voice, telling him to stop. He focused on hydration and didn’t think about food. He also wasn’t in much pain; that would come later.
“In my notebook, I end up writing goodbye letters to my friends and family,” Reum said, adding he wrote his obituary and a last will for his best friend, as well as a suicide note he had penned earlier. Matt Reum, who was rescued after being trapped in his vehicle for six days after a crash in December, center, poses for a photo with Nivardo De La Torre, to his right, Mario Garcia, to his left, and members of the Izaak Walton League in Hobart on Monday, February 12, 2024.
Despite the pain and clearing confusion, Reum cracked jokes with his rescuers. He’s not a comedian, he said, but he can be in certain situations. In the obituary he penned in his journal, Reum wrote that anybody who cried at his funeral would get kicked out.Porter County Central Dispatch received the 911 call from the fishermen at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 26 about the crash off I-94 at the Salt Creek overpass one mile east of the Portage exit.
An extrication that would have taken 20 or 25 minutes on a road took around an hour, in part because rescuers had to haul the equipment they needed from their firetrucks down the embankment.“Once we got more people there, we literally had a line of people handing equipment down,” Steffel added. “Another crew actually cut all the trees and brush” so rescuers had an easier time transporting Reum, Swets said. Eight rescuers carried Reum up the embankment.
The mild weather for late December helped Reum survive, rescuers said, just one of the many things that were in his favor. They had been sitting at a corner table toward the front of their room with their families and Reum, who came to see his rescuers, and now friends, honored for their effort in saving his life.
As the meeting came to an end, Reum made his way to the front of the room for pictures with Garcia and De La Torre. Coleman, meanwhile, credited his wife Priscilla Coleman for putting together the recognition. The day after Christmas, a family friend who is active on social media saw a post about how two fishermen found Reum alive in his truck and forwarded it on to Reum’s parents. Shortly after that, Rex Reum booked a flight from Atlanta to South Bend.Matt Reum of South Bend, who spent six days trapped in his truck under a bridge on Interstate 94 in December, speaks about his ordeal in Valparaiso on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024.
Before the second surgery, Reum joked with surgeons that they were going to cut off his “chicken nugget.” on Jan. 16 and has moved into a different apartment, and still has ongoing medical and therapy appointments. He gets around with a walker with blue tennis balls on the back legs and an armrest with a Velcro strap for his right arm as his shattered hand continues to heal.
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