Brieonna Cassell, Wheatfield, Indiana mom of 3 tells how she beat the odds to survive 6 days in trapped car after crash after becoming pinned behind steering wheel and forced to summon her ingenuity, cunning and will to survive her ordeal.
‘Don’t give up….’ An Indiana mom of three has told of ‘miraculously’ surviving nearly a week trapped in her car after crashing into a ditch.
Brieonna Cassell, 41, of Wheatfield, IN, was found Tuesday stuck in her Ford Taurus in a ditch about 80 miles outside of Chicago, after her vehicle becoming partially submerged in a stream-bed which was invisible from the roadway above.
The crash follows Cassell falling asleep at the wheel after setting off to see friends only to crash into a ditch.
Pinned beneath the steering wheel and unable to move, with severe leg injuries, or unable to climb out of her car safety, Cassell was left moribund, CNN reported.
Worse, her phone would send up losing battery and going dead, forcing Cassell to survive her ordeal with her cunning and ingenuity.
Cassell would spend the next six days waiting for help ‘from the outside world’ to arrive. But it would ultimately be what she was able to pull from inside of herself that kept her alive.
With nighttime temperatures dropping into the 20s, Cassell staved to keep calm, keeping her fears at bay. If she was to survive her ordeal, she would be forced to get creative to stay alive.
In an effort to get at fresh water nearby, Cassell dipped her sweatshirt into dripping creek water, wringing whatever water she could absorb so as to be able to drink water — and stay alive.
‘She was in excruciating pain, she was screaming out for help,’ her father, Delmar Caldwell, told WLS. ‘She could hear cars going by, but they couldn’t see her from the road.’
Beyond physical dexterity and ingenuity of procuring drinkable water, Cassell’s ordeal was a testament of will and battling mental duress of the unknown and whether help would ever arrive?
‘She did what she could to survive,’ her mother, Kim Brown told media. ‘I am so glad she was found alive, and I just can’t wait to hug her and kiss her.’
Unaccounted for over six days, the Jasper County Sheriff’s office posted missing persons posters while ‘searching in vain’ for the missing mom of three.
But fate intervened.
On the sixth day following the accident, Tuesday, a drainage worker was operating equipment nearby, eventually coming across Cassell’s smashed up vehicle in the ditch. A closer look, led to worker along with his supervisor finding Cassell alive and awake inside.
Cassell was pulled from the car and airlifted to a Chicago hospital, with details of the trapped driver’s surviving her ordeal since emerging.
Cassell had been slated to undergoing surgery on Wednesday for injuries she suffered to her wrist, ribs, and legs.
While the mom of three is at risk of losing her legs, she is expected to otherwise recover.
‘It’s going to be a long road to recovery,’ her father said. ‘Don’t lose hope. Don’t give up. We had thought the worst. It had gone through our minds so many times, but thank God.’
And in six days Brieonna Cassell lived the existential angst of the human condition, and against all odds survived, exhibiting the power of free will and man’s desire to survive, to take one more breath, to dare face adversity, the unknown, and whether salvation would ever arrive …
