PORTAGE, Ind. (WISH) — Two men scouting fishing locations on Tuesday afternoon found a mangled truck in a creek below an interstate bridge, and the severely injured man inside told them he’d crashed nearly a week ago.

Burns Harbor fire crews rescued the man, later identified by Indiana State Police as 27-year-old Matthew Reum from Mishawaka, from the mangled truck, and he was airlifted with severe life-threatening injuries to South Bend’s Memorial Hospital, an Indiana State Police spokesman said.

“One more day, and he probably wouldn’t have made it,” said Mario Garcia, of Hobart, one of the two men who found the man.

South Bend’s Memorial Hospital on Wednesday night said Reum was in critical condition.

A news release Wednesday night from a Beacon Health System spokeswoman said Reum hopes to eventually share his story. The release also said that Reum “has asked not only for time to process everything that he has endured since last Wednesday, but also for time to rest and heal. … He adds, ‘No matter how tough things get, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes in the least expected way.’”

Garcia and Nivardo Delatorre, of Portage, found the man around 3:45 p.m. and called the Porter County dispatch center. The truck was under the Salt Creek bridge for I-94, about a mile east of the Portage exit, said Sgt. Glen Fifield of the state police. The bridge is in a wooded area between exits for U.S. 20 and State Road 249 in northwest Indiana.

Garcia and Delatorre, in a Tuesday night news conference with Fifield, say while surveying the creek they caught a reflection of the mangled truck and decided to investigate. They pulled back an airbag and saw the man, Reum, sitting up in the vehicle. The men originally thought Reum was dead, but when they spoke to him, Reum then turned his head toward them, and that’s when they called authorities.

Fifield says Reum told the two men that he’d crashed “a couple days ago or potentially last week but he could not reach his cellphone to call for help.”

But, Garcia says, Reum told them he’d been there “since last Wednesday.” He told them he’d tried “yelling and screaming,” but no one heard him. Tightly trapped in the wrecked truck, Garcia says, the man told them he’d nearly lost all hope.

Garcia said, “He had to survive just on his youth and God’s help there.”

“One more day and he probably wouldn’t have made it,” he added, and the state police spokesman agreed.

Fifield said, “It’s going to take some time for him to heal.”

Both cited the recently warmer-than-normal temperatures for helping to keep Reum alive so long after the crash.

A GoFundMe was set up Wednesday for Reum’s medical bills and recovery. As of 7 p.m. Wednesday, the fund had raised more than $28,300, exceeding its goal.

Fifield says Reum had not been reported missing.

Salt Creek on Tuesday at the bridge was about 30 feet across and a couple of feet deep, the state police spokesman and the two men say. Fifield adds that the crashed truck was not visible to anyone standing on the bridge.

Fifield said a guardrail separates the road from the drop to the creek. Investigators said in a release late Tuesday that Reum had been traveling in the westbound interstate lanes when he suddenly left the roadway for unknown reasons. He drove into a ditch, missing the guardrail. His truck overturned into the creek before rolling under the bridge.

State police had no reports of a recent crash in that area.

Fifield said in the release, “This crash is a reminder of the importance of always letting someone know if you are traveling, the route you are taking, and the need to always have emergency items in your vehicle. The will to survive this crash was nothing short of extraordinary as it was also determined that Mr. Reum was able to drink rain water for hydration in order to survive for such a long period of time while being exposed to the elements.”

News 8’s Michaela Springer contributed to this report.

(Provided Photos/Portage Fire Department)