‘I Thought I Was Going to Die Here’: 6 Days Trapped in a Car, Just Out of Sight

U.S.|‘I Thought I Was Going to Die Here’: 6 Days Trapped in a Car, Just Out of Sight

Brieonna Cassell woke up in her Ford Taurus on Tuesday morning and began to lose hope that she’d ever get out of the car alive.

Nearly a week earlier, she had fallen asleep at the wheel while driving to her mother’s house and careened into a ditch. For six days, Ms. Cassell, a 41-year-old mother of three from Sheldon, Ill., had been trapped in the vehicle, battling for her life.

The accident shattered her left arm and legs and crushed the dashboard, pinning her lower body in place. Her cellphone flew under the passenger seat, just out of reach, and quickly ran out of battery.

“All she could do was move her arms, and one was broken,” her daughter, Alexis Cassell, said.

So there she remained in rural northwest Indiana, mere yards from a bridge that hundreds of cars passed over each day, their occupants oblivious to the woman trapped just below them. She did whatever she could, according to interviews with friends, family and those who rescued her: She stabilized her injuries, sent out distress signals and kept her mind active, exhibiting a resourcefulness that surprised even those who knew her best.

“She said she just kept fighting, hoping somebody would find her,” her daughter said.

The First Few Days

Ms. Cassell crashed around midnight on March 5, and immediately began to scream for help from the darkness of the ditch. The road was mere yards away, but because her car was almost directly under a bridge, it would have been difficult for drivers to hear or see her, according to her family.

Her leg was bleeding heavily. In what was most likely the first of many moves that saved her life, she grabbed her belt and fastened a tourniquet, her mother, Kimberly Brown, said. As temperatures dropped below freezing overnight, she covered herself with a comforter that was in the back of her car — a gift she had recently purchased for a friend.