BROOK, Ind. — An Indiana woman who was trapped in her car after a crash survived for nearly a week on water from a small creek before she was discovered and rescued, authorities said.

A man operating drainage equipment saw Brieonna Cassell’s car off a roadway Tuesday near the town of Brook, Indiana, Newton County Sheriff Shannon Cothran said in a post on social media.

The man who spotted her car told his supervisor, who is also a fire chief, and they found Cassell inside the car, conscious and able to speak, according to the sheriff. Multiple agencies responded and the 41-year-old woman, of Wheatfield, Indiana, was extricated and flown to a Chicago hospital, he said.

Cassell had been reported missing by family members days before she was found, the sheriff said. She had been trapped since March 6, when she fell asleep at the wheel and veered off the road into a ditch, her father, Delmar Caldwell, told ABC News. Her vehicle wasn’t visible from the road.

— The Associated Press