After six days in a hidden ditch with shattered bones, an Indiana mom survived against all odds—and now she’s sharing her story with the world.
For six long days, Brieonna Cassell lay trapped in a wrecked car at the bottom of a ditch in rural Indiana—injured, alone, and completely out of sight from the road above.
Back in March, the 41-year-old mom of three had been driving through Newton County late at night when she nodded off behind the wheel. In an instant, her car veered off the road, launched into an embankment, and crumpled like a tin can.
“My car ramped up. It smacked into the embankment on the other side. It crunched like an accordion. It threw my body into the floorboard,” Cassell told local reporters.
She suffered brutal injuries—compound fractures in both legs and one arm, along with broken ribs and vertebrae—but somehow stayed conscious. As pain shot through her body, one thought kept her going: stay calm.
“One of the first things I told myself was, ‘All right, you gotta stay calm because if you freak out, it’s not going to help you,’” she said.
Cassell was convinced someone would spot her by sunrise. But her car had landed in a ditch so deep and hidden, no one could see it from the road. Worse yet, her phone had flown from the cup holder and landed just out of reach.
“I mean, I felt it. It was at my fingertips. I was able to reach over and touch it, but I kept pushing it farther. I couldn’t grab it,” she said.
With no help in sight and no way to call for help, she improvised. She soaked up water from a shallow creek with a pair of jeans just to stay hydrated. And through the long nights and longer days, she kept one thing in mind: her kids.
“My kids are most. That’s who I was really worried about. I wasn’t leaving my babies,” she said.
By the sixth morning, she hit her breaking point. She’d held on as long as she could.
“I said, ‘I’ve done everything that I can think of. I cannot get out of here alone. You have to let somebody see me, or I’m not gonna make it out.’”
Miraculously, it worked. Within an hour, a local volunteer fire chief named Jeremy, who’d been tipped off about her possible location, spotted the car and called 911. Cassell was airlifted to Advocate Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
She would go on to endure 13 surgeries. At first, doctors weren’t sure if they could save her legs. But they did.
“I get emotional talking about all that, too, because if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.
Three months later, Cassell is finally home. She still can’t walk yet, but doctors are hopeful she will in time. And now, she’s working on turning her survival story into a book.
It’s not just a tale of survival—it’s a reminder of how powerful the will to live really is.