Missing Woman Survives Being Trapped in Her Car 6 Days After Crashing Into Ditch

She survived for nearly a week, with several broken bones, by soaking her hoodie in drainage water and drinking it. The post Missing Woman Survives Being Trapped in Her Car 6 Days After Crashing Into Ditch appeared first on The Drive.

Mar 13, 2025 - 16:58

Missing Woman Survives Being Trapped in Her Car 6 Days After Crashing Into Ditch

Brieonna Cassell, 41 of Wheatfield, Indiana, veered off the road and crashed into a drainage ditch after reportedly falling asleep at the wheel last Wednesday. Since the car fell so far below the sightline from the road, no one spotted her vehicle. In the crash, Cassell cut her forehead, fractured one arm and both legs, and broke multiple ribs, so she couldn’t escape. She was trapped for six days before a drainage worker found her.

Cassell said she tried yelling for help, as she heard cars driving past, but no one could hear her. To make matters worse, her phone was dead, so she couldn’t call for help. Despite all this, she endured and was clever enough to hydrate herself enough to survive by dipping her hoodie into the water beneath her car and wringing it out.

“She persevered. She wanted to stay alive,” said Cassell’s father, Delmar Caldwell, according to CNN. “She was in excruciating pain. She was screaming out for help.”

*Newton County Sheriff’s Office via Facebook*

Cassell endured the pain of multiple broken bones for almost a week. All the while, police had been searching for her for six days, following a missing person report. When DeYoung Drainage employee Johnny Martinez spotted her, while operating heavy equipment, he called his supervisor Jeremy Vanderwell, who luckily also happened to be a local fire chief. Vanderwell asked Cassell how long she’d been there. “Since Wednesday,” she told him.

“I said, ‘ma’am, it’s Tuesday,” according to Vanderwell. “Tomorrow’s Wednesday.” She then told him she’d been in the car since the previous Wednesday night.

Once Cassell was found, she was airlifted to a Chicago hospital and was placed in the ICU. On Wednesday, she underwent surgery for injuries. Fortunately, she had the determination to survive for so long, on so little, while in immense pain, and someone was able to find her before it was too late.