Mario Garcia and son-in-law Nivardo De La Torre had been killing time while waiting for their wives, police say.
They ended up finding Matthew Reum, 27, of Mishawaka, whose truck had crashed off Interstate 94 on 20 December.
In hospital, Mr Reum had one of his legs amputated and is now in intensive care, his union says.
Mr Garcia said he had seen the wrecked truck and was moving an airbag out of the way when Mr Reum “woke up”.
The driver told the men he had been trapped and pinned in his seat under the bridge near Portage, he recalled at a news conference held by the state police.
“He tried yelling and screaming, but nobody would hear him,” Mr Garcia recalled the man telling him.
“It was just quiet - just the sound of the water.”
Mr Reum, a union welder, had had no food but survived by drinking rain water.
I don’t think it’s too difficult… Working to
livesurvive, no time/energy to develop a significant other, a lack of a ‘family’. Honestly, from my perspective those traits all seem pretty prevalent. What with all of those ‘male loneliness epidemic’ being reported.So his work never noticed he was missing? unless he’s simply that unreliable, most bosses would have called their emergency contact and been like ‘uh, what’s up?’; and it’s doubtful that there would have been literally nobody.
I don’t have the links right now but I’ve read numerous stories where a person was found dead in their house after they had died years ago. Many people have no one in their life. And many bosses won’t care if you stop showing up. They’ll just assume you quit.
He crashed on Wednesday before the long holiday weekend so only missing for the first day or two
Maybe he had/took a week or two off? It’s kinda pretty common for that around this time of the year.