‘She’s very strong’: Northwest Indiana woman trapped in car for 6 days, recovering from surgeries

*Editor’s Note: A GoFundMe page set up by the Cassell family to help cover medical bills is hyperlinked in the last line of this article. Brieonna Cassell’s daughter said her mother is uninsured.

OAK LAWN, Ill. (WGN) — A Northwest Indiana woman embarked on a long road toward recovery Wednesday after being trapped for six days inside her crashed Ford Taurus.

Brieonna Cassell, a 41-year-old mom of three, is in the Intensive Care Unit at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn after a Deyoung Drainage employee noticed her wrecked vehicle in a ditch Tuesday along CR 600S near CR 300E in Newton County, Indiana.

Cassell’s 23-year-old daughter, Lexie, and husband, Aaron, stepped out of the ICU at Advocate Christ to share an update on her condition Wednesday evening. Doctors are hoping to save her legs, but for the time being, all they can do is wait.

“She’s very strong in general, she’s caring, she has a very big heart, she helps anybody when they need help,” Lexie Cassell said.

Cassell has compound fractures and infections in both legs and a compound fracture in one wrist, but was still able to use that arm to save herself during the six days she was trapped inside her crashed car.

“She put the car in reverse and let it roll back down the bank to the water, so she could reach out,” Aaron Cassell said. “She could only reach out with one arm to reach the water and then let it soak up in there and pull up and suck the water out of the hood.”

Cassell underwent surgery at Advocate Christ Wednesday afternoon. Now, doctors are waiting for infections from her wounds to heal before they proceed with further treatment and possible surgeries.

As of Wednesday evening, doctors said the possibility of amputation remains.

While the severity of her injuries still hangs in the balance as she recovers, fate would have it that another Northwest Indiana man who was also trapped for six days inside a car is there to offer support.

“She’s got somebody in her corner that can actually relate,” Matt Reum said.

Reum, like Cassell, survived a Northwest Indiana crash that also left his legs pinned inside his truck, where he was stuck for six days. Since being rescued from the wreck in December 2023, Reum has had one leg amputated and he just underwent surgery on his hand.

“There are so many kind of eerie similarities between the two,” Reum said. “But I think the best similarity of the two is that we are both still here to be able to talk about it.”

They are two survival stories that bear an even closer connection. Reum happens to know Cassell’s brother-in-law through their work as boilermakers. He said he is hoping to meet Cassell someday when she’s ready.

“If I could tell her one thing today, the recovery isn’t going to be easy by any stretch of the words because it’s never easy,” Matt Reum said. “But the recovery is there to make things easier.”

One of the biggest hurdles for the Cassell family now is the mounting costs of recovery. Lexie Cassell said her mom doesn’t have insurance, and the family has started a GoFundMe page to help pay for her medical bills.