As It Happens7:06‘She’s a strong girl,’ says father of woman who survived 6 days trapped in crashed car
An Indiana woman who crashed her car into a ditch and broke both her legs survived nearly a week by dipping her clothes into a nearby creek and sucking up the water, says her father.
Brieonna Cassell, a 41-year-old mother of three from Wheatfield, Ind., is in hospital recovering from her injuries after spending six days trapped in her car by the side of the road, too injured to scream for help, and her phone out of reach.
“She’s in good spirits. She’s a strong girl,” her father, Delmar Caldwell, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “She’s a better person than I am. I don’t think I could have made it that long.”
Not answering her phone
Caldwell first got wind something was wrong when Cassell’s mother called him last week and said their daughter was not picking up her phone. He tried calling her himself, and it went straight to voicemail.
So they reached out to her kids, aged 16, 21 and 23. But she didn’t answer their calls or messages either.
“We knew something was wrong,” he said. “I mean, it’s one thing to ignore her parents, but not her children. She would never do that.”
Once it became clear she was missing, police started investigating, and the family appealed for help on social media.
Caldwell says he spent the week driving to different towns, following up on leads from folks who said they had seen her. He was on his way to a store to check surveillance footage when he got the call from police saying Cassell had been found alive and was being airlifted to hospital.
“I had to pull over,” he said, his voice breaking. “I had lost it, but I was so grateful and thankful that she was alive. I was beginning to lose hope.”
What happened?
Cassell, it turns out, had fallen asleep at the wheel while driving back from a friend’s house. When she woke up, she was at the bottom of a six-metre-deep ditch in Brook, Ind., invisible to the passing cars.
“She just told me yesterday she was hearing vehicles drive by all the time,” Caldwell said. “And she was trying to holler, but she had several broken ribs, which made it very difficult.”
Her phone had slipped under the passenger seat, he said, and she couldn’t reach it. She’s suffered compound fractures — when broken bone pierces through the skin — in both legs and one wrist.
Eventually, her phone battery died.
“That’s why, when we called, it was going straight to voicemail,” Caldwell said.
Caldwell says his daughter told him she’d kept warm using a comforter she had in the back seat. For the first couple days, she drank from a bottle of water she’d had in her car.
When that ran out, she had to rely on the creek water at the bottom of the ditch.
“She was able to get the driver’s side door open … and she was using her good arm to swing her clothing down there and get it soaking wet, and then pulling it back up and sucking the water out of her clothing,” Caldwell said.
Good Samaritan, volunteer firefighters to the rescue
According to the Newton County Sheriff’s Office, it was a Good Samaritan who ultimately saved Cassell’s life.
Johnny Martinez was operating equipment nearby for a drainage company on Tuesday. From his vantage point, he spotted Cassell’s car.
Police say he called his supervisor, who happened to a volunteer fire chief. The two approached the vehicle, and saw Cassell inside.
First responders from three different volunteer fire departments helped get her out, police said.
“Newton County may be small, but we are mighty — thanks in large part to our volunteer firefighters,” Sheriff Shannon Cothran said in a social media post. “In my book, Mr. Martinez is a hero, and we can never thank him enough for his keen eye and quick action.”
CBC was unable to reach Martinez for comment. Caldwell says he’s trying to arrange a meeting to thank him in person.
“I don’t think she’d have made it another day,” he said.
A long road ahead
Cassell, meanwhile, remains in the intensive care unit. Because her wounds went untreated for so long, Caldwell says doctors are trying to keep infection from spreading.
“They’re working on trying to help her keep her legs … and hopefully her arm,” her father said.
Cassell’s daughter has created a Go Fund Me page titled “Support Brieonna Cassell’s Medical Recovery” to help pay for what they expect will be a long road ahead, including multiple surgeries.
Still, Caldwell says his daughter is taking it all in stride. The first thing she did when she got out of the emergency room, he says, was eat.
“She was eating like a pig,” he said with a chuckle. “She would just shovel it in as fast as she could.”
When she first arrived in hospital, he says she was begging for orange sherbet. He couldn’t believe it, he says, but they made sure she got some as soon as the doctors gave the all-clear — along with a more substantial meal, of course.
Whatever happens next, Caldwell says he’s just happy she survived.
“We’re so grateful,” he said. “She’s alive. She’s safe. She’s warm.”
