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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Leah Harper

My truck plunged into a ravine – and for six days I was trapped, alone and afraid

Matthew Reum with longish red hair and beard sitting to the left of his apartment window wearing a red jumper with one hand resting on the other arm
‘I’ve been given a new lease of life’ … Reum at home in Indiana. Photograph: Jamie Kelter Davis/The Guardian

Matthew Reum was driving home late on a dark, foggy night in Indiana when his headlights landed on what looked like a deer. As he swerved, his truck barrel-rolled down a ravine, into the creek beneath Interstate 94.

It was 20 December 2023, and Reum, a boiler-man, was 27. He was flung between his seat and the ceiling, losing consciousness as the airbags activated and the windows shattered around him. He remembers coming to and finding he was wet, it was dark and “not miserably cold, but it’s winter,” he says, “so it’s probably 30F [-1C]”. He knew he didn’t have any food or water in the car, but wasn’t too concerned. Someone must have seen him swerve, he thought.

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