Four dead after Tesla crash causes fire in Toronto

Four people were killed – and one person was rescued by a bystander – after their Tesla burst into flames after crashing into a pillar on the roadway.

The incident occurred around 12:10 a.m. local time, when an electric vehicle with “five occupants” was “traveling at a high rate of speed,” said Toronto Police Duty Insp. Phillip Sinclair at a press conference, according to CBC News.

The 2024 Tesla lost control and struck a guardrail and concrete pillar, police said said in a press release. The vehicle caught fire upon impact. Three men, aged 26, 29 and 32, as well as a 30-year-old woman, were pronounced dead at the scene, while a 25-year-old woman was taken to hospital with “non-life-threatening injuries”, police said. said.

Sinclair noted at his press conference that no other vehicles were involved in the crash and that an investigation into what happened is ongoing. Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop added that they are exploring the possibility of linking “the intensity of the fire” to the “battery cells” in the car, according to CBC News.

Tesla did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Sinclair told CTV News that the sole survivor of the crash was rescued by a “bystander” – eventually identified as 73-year-old Canadian postal worker Rick Harper – who “rendered aid” at the crash site around the time the “fire had started.”

“Thank you very much to that bystander,” Sinclair said, according to the outlet. “We have spoken to them, and obviously they are also deeply affected by this incident, a very horrific scene for that bystander to intervene.”

Harper told CBC News and the Toronto star that when he encountered the crash, others were already gathered outside the vehicle and banging on the rear passenger windows because they could not open the doors. He recalled to CBC News: “Then someone shouted, ‘Do you have a bar? Do you have a bar? There’s someone there.’ ”

Harper told CBC News he managed to grab a rod from his truck and “wave” it at the back window before handing it to another bystander, who successfully broke it and pulled a woman out of the backseat.

“She came out quickly, head first. She didn’t say anything,” he recalled Toronto star. “There were no words from anyone. We could see the fear in her eyes. She let out little cries.”

“You could see the fear in her eyes. You could see the fear,” he told CBC News, adding, “And no one thought there was anyone else in the car at the time. No indication.”

He told the outlet that after the rescue he got back in his car and went to work. It was only some time during the work that he finally understood the magnitude of the tragedy.

“I was completely shocked. “It really hit me when I saw on the news that four had died,” he said, adding that he “spoke to some detectives” who told him the girl he had saved was “recovering in the hospital ‘.