LEWISTON — A local man whose car careened into a gully and struck a tree said Wednesday his doctor told him he’s lucky to be alive.

Sadak Kariye, 27, credited an early-morning motorist who stopped for him with saving his life.

Kariye told his story through Somali interpreter and certified nursing assistant Zam-Zam Mohamud at Central Maine Medical Center, where he was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit on Sunday.

He was feeling sick during his third shift in the warehouse at the Brunswick Walmart early Sunday morning. His manager told him he could leave at about 5 a.m., two hours before the end of his shift, he said.

He climbed into his 1991 Honda sedan and began driving home. He soon started vomiting repeatedly and became dizzy. When he lost consciousness near West Merrill Road in Topsham, his car plowed through a snowbank, crossed a driveway, hit another snowbank and was launched down an embankment where it struck a tree, according to Topsham police Sgt. Mark Gilliam.

The car traveled about 250 feet before it came to a rest in knee-deep snow.

When Kariye regained consciousness, likely hours later, he couldn’t find his cellphone. He tried to engage his car’s emergency flashing lights, but they were broken, he said. He was afraid nobody would notice his car in the ravine.

Freezing and exhausted, Kariye crawled roughly 60 feet up the steep pitch to the shoulder of Route 196 in Topsham, falling backward several times.

“I used all of my strength,” he said.

He flagged down a car driven by a woman, he said. She braked and got out of her car when he collapsed. He awoke and said he was cold. He asked if he could get into her car to get warm. She brought a sleeping bag to where he was lying and stayed with him until emergency crews arrived.

“Thank God for that woman,” he said. “If not for that woman, I would not be alive.”

Gilliam said that woman was off-duty Lisbon patrol officer Ellen Jones.

Despite having been strapped in by his seat belt, Kariye broke the bridge of his nose where it hit his steering wheel and both of his eyes were blackened. His liver was lacerated, he said, raising among his doctors the possibility of surgery.

His doctor told him he was “very, very lucky to be alive,” he said. He’s grateful for the doctors, nurses and paramedics from the ambulance.

Most of all, though, he is thankful to the good Samaritan who stopped on the road that morning.

“I hope I see that lady so I can say thank you,” he said in broken English, “because she saved my life.”

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