Firefighter Recounts MI Crash that Trapped Driver for Days

Jan. 15, 2024
Firefighter Jordan Bucy was one of the first Portage rescuers to arrive and help free a man trapped for six days in his vehicle.

A Portage firefighter shared the story of their work to rescue a man who had been trapped in his truck for six days following a wreck.

Jordan Bucy, a Master Firefighter Paramedic, is one of several Portage firefighters who worked to free Matt Reum after his truck crashed under a bridge.

"It definitely is a bright light in what we do," Bucy told WSBT.com. "There's quite often, we do feel like we do good. But it's not very often that we can see the follow up with these patients and continually track."

Reum was trapped in his pickup for six days until two fishermen saw the wrecked vehicle and called for help.

"Kind of coming up with a plan and how we were going to cut the vehicle out from around the patient and how we were going to accomplish that. So that's kind of when I got involved in the extrication portion of it." Bucy recalled;

"He was upbeat with us. He was, you know, joking with us, he was talking with us. And in turn that actually made it easier for us to do our job."

Reum lost part of his leg to an amputation following the crash.