A speeding Tesla collided with a guardrail early Thursday morning before bursting into flames, killing four people and leaving just one survivor.
A pair of siblings, Ketaba and Nil Gohil from Gujarat, were traveling with Jairaj Singh Sisodia and Digvijay Patel around midnight Thursday on Lake Shore Boulevard East, just west of Don Roadway in downtown Toronto. The star reported.
Just before 12:15 p.m., the driver of the 2024 Tesla lost control and collided with a guardrail, which then struck a concrete pillar and eventually exploded.
All four were dead at the scene.
“We were on the other side of the river and we heard the tires screeching and we heard the impact,” Keith Barrow, foreman at QM Environmental, told The Star.
A 2024 Tesla collided with a guardrail and then a concrete pillar early Thursday morning before exploding in downtown Toronto, Canada, killing four people
A pair of siblings, Ketaba and Nil Gohil from Gujarat, and friends Jairaj Singh Sisodia and Digvijay Patel – all in their 20s and 30s – were declared dead on the spot.
“So I drove to DVP and Lake Shore and by that time the flames were 20, maybe 30 feet high. It was scary to see.”
By the time Burrow arrived at the crash site about three minutes later, about five other cars had already stopped and were trying to break the windows of the burning vehicle.
Another passerby, Rick Harper, recalled seeing the Tesla dark and full of smoke. Tragically, he described hearing faint voices “crying out screams.” Toronto CTV News reported.
When firefighters arrived and extinguished the blaze, three men and a woman – all in their 20s and 30s – were in what was left 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 taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Harper, who was driving along the boulevard early Thursday morning, saw flames ahead and happened to be 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 taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Toronto police and fire officials noted that the Tesla’s battery cells most likely fueled the catastrophic fire, which witnesses reported was 30 feet high.
“I made a few waves at the window and passed the bar to the guy next to me, and he made a few waves, and then the window came out,” Harper told CTV News.
“And then it was good to see the young lady come out of the window headfirst.”
But he knew nothing about the four others trapped inside. The surviving young woman provided no additional information immediately after her rescue.
‘There was panic in her eyes. No one asked her anything,” Harper added. “She probably wouldn’t be able to talk. We just assumed it was a trapped driver, and without fire equipment there was nothing we could do for the driver.”
But the devastating outcome deeply upset him, especially when he remembered the faint voices echoing from the engulfed car.
“It was so muffled and so quiet and so faint,” he added. “That’s what hurts, hearing a voice and finding out later, a few hours later, that there were people in that car, and no one knew. No one knew until the fire was out.”
Phillip Sinclair, a service inspector, noted that the car’s excessive speed was most 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 ignition
‘If we had known anyone else was there, we would have tried to crawl through the window or grab someone else, but it was dark in the car. You couldn’t see in there.’
He left the scene a short time later, trying to make room for emergency vehicles and fearing a possible lithium or electrical explosion.
“The haunting 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 would take an “exponential” amount of water to stop vehicle fires, The Star reported.
Phillip Sinclair, a service inspector, reported how the car’s high speed was a likely factor in the crash. Free press magazine reported.
Toronto police and fire officials also noted that the Tesla’s battery cells most likely sparked the catastrophic fire.
The collision was so severe that one of the batteries was ejected from the Tesla and was later dumped by emergency services into a sand-filled dumpster and taken to a landfill for proper disposal, reducing the risk of re-incineration.
Chief Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop noted that vehicle fires require an “exponential amount of water” to successfully extinguish
Police officers remained heavily on the scene throughout the early morning hours, working with the Collision Reconstruction Unit to figure out exactly what happened, CTV News reported.
But it’s still not clear where the group went, what caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle and whether the Tesla was a self-driving model.
The Toronto Fire Department is paying increasing attention to lithium-ion battery packs, which have been known to reignite even weeks after the initial fire.
“This is something that will certainly be an evolving risk that the Toronto Fire Department has been very proactive in preparing for the future,” Jim Jessop, the deputy fire chief, told CTV.
‘But I want to be very clear; we have all experienced collisions where we have also had terrible car fires that ran on gasoline. “So I don’t want to make any suggestions or comments until the investigation is complete.”
Sinclair noted that every angle will be looked at in the investigation into the tragedy.
‘As with any investigation, you will work with city partners to look at all factors that may be at play, including road service and environmental factors, to determine exactly what factors are involved, or what could have led to the collision, he said.
The City of Toronto issued a statement to the family and friends of those affected, also wishing a full recovery for the woman who was seriously injured.