A speeding Tesla crashed into a guardrail before bursting into flames in Canada early Thursday, killing four people and leaving only one survivor.
A pair of brothers, Ketaba and Nil Gohil from Gujarat, were traveling with Jairaj Singh Sisodia and Digvijay Patel on Lake Shore Boulevard East, just west of Don Roadway in downtown Toronto, around midnight Thursday. the star reported.
Shortly before 12:15 a.m., the driver of the Tesla 2024 lost control: he hit a guardrail, which then hit a concrete pillar and finally exploded.
All four died at the scene.
“We were on the opposite side of the river and we heard the tires squeal and we heard the impact,” Keith Barrow, a foreman at QM Environmental, told The Star.
A Tesla model 2024 crashed into a guardrail and then into a concrete pillar before exploding in downtown Toronto, Canada, early Thursday morning, claiming the lives of four people.
A pair of brothers, Ketaba and Nil Gohil from Gujarat, and their friends Jairaj Singh Sisodia and Digvijay Patel, all aged between 20 and 30, were declared dead at the scene.
‘So I drove to DVP and Lake Shore and at that point, the flames were 20, maybe 30 feet high. “It was terrifying to see.”
When Burrow arrived at the crash site about three minutes later, approximately five other cars had already stopped and were attempting to break the windows of the burning vehicle.
Another passerby, Rick Harper, recalled seeing the dark, smoky Tesla. Tragically, he described hearing faint voices “letting out screams.” Toronto CTV News reported.
When firefighters arrived and extinguished the fire, three men and a woman, all in their 20s and 30s, were in what remained of the car and were pronounced dead at the scene. CTV News reported.
The sole survivor, a 25-year-old woman, was miraculously pulled from the burning car by Harper and rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Harper, who was driving on the boulevard early Thursday morning, saw flames ahead of him and was equipped with a fire extinguisher, so he stopped to help.
The sole survivor, a 25-year-old woman, was miraculously pulled from the burning car by a motorist before being rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Toronto police and fire officials said the Tesla’s battery cells likely fueled the catastrophic fire that witnesses said was 30 feet high.
“I hit the window a few times, I passed the bar to the guy next to me, he took a few hits and then the window came out,” Harper told CTV News.
“And then it was nice to see the young girl go headfirst out of the window.”
But he didn’t know anything about the other four who were trapped inside. The young survivor did not offer any additional information immediately after her rescue.
‘There was panic in his eyes. Nobody asked her anything,” Harper added. ‘She probably wouldn’t be able to talk. We just assumed it was a driver who was trapped and, without fire equipment, we couldn’t do anything for the driver.’
But the devastating outcome left him deeply upset, especially as he remembered the faint voices that echoed from the sunken car.
“It was so dull, so quiet and so weak,” he added. ‘That’s what hurts, hearing a voice and then finding out a few hours later that there were people in that car and no one knew. No one knew until the fire was extinguished.
Phillip Sinclair, a service inspector, noted that the car’s excessive speed was likely a factor in the collision.
The collision was so severe that one of the batteries was ejected from the Tesla and had to be properly disposed of to prevent further fires.
“If we had known there was someone else, we would have tried to get in through the window or grab someone else, but the inside of the car was dark. You couldn’t see in there.
A short time later he left the scene, trying to make room for emergency vehicles and fearing a possible lithium or electricity explosion.
“The disturbing part is hearing a voice and knowing there’s nothing you can do, waiting for the fire trucks to come and put out the fire and, you know, get people to safety,” Harper added.
Jim Jessop, deputy chief of the Toronto Fire Department, said it takes an “exponential” amount of water to stop vehicle fires, The Star reported.
Phillip Sinclair, a service inspector, reported that the car’s high speed was a likely factor in the accident. free press newspaper reported.
Toronto police and fire officials also noted that the Tesla’s battery cells likely fueled the catastrophic fire.
The collision was so severe that one of the batteries was ejected from the Tesla and then emergency crews dumped it into a container filled with sand and took it to a landfill for proper disposal, decreasing the risk of another combustion.
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop noted how vehicle fires require an “exponential amount of water” to be successfully extinguished.
Police officers remained heavily on scene during the early morning hours, working alongside the Collision Reconstruction Unit to piece together what exactly happened, CTV News reported.
But it’s still unclear where the group was headed, what caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle or whether the Tesla was a self-driving model.
Toronto Fire Services has paid increasing attention to lithium-ion battery packs, which have been known to reignite even weeks after the initial fire.
“This is something that is certainly going to be an evolving risk and the Toronto Fire Service has been very proactive in preparing for the future,” Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop told CTV.
‘But I want to be very clear; We have all been in collisions where we have also had horrible gasoline-powered vehicle fires. “So I don’t want to make any suggestions or comments until the investigation is complete.”
Sinclair said all angles will be looked at as the tragedy is investigated.
“As with any investigation, we work with city partners to look at all the factors that could be involved, including road service, environmental factors, to determine exactly what factors are involved or what could have led to the collision,” he said.
The city of Toronto made a statement to the family and friends of those affected and wished a full recovery to the woman who was seriously injured.
