4 killed in fiery electric vehicle crash in downtown Toronto | CBC News

Four people were killed in a fiery single-vehicle crash in downtown Toronto early Thursday, while the lone survivor was pulled from the burning car by a passing driver, police say.

The deadly collision happened at about 12:10 a.m. on Lake Shore Boulevard E. near Cherry Street.

A Tesla with three men and two women inside was speeding eastbound on Lake Shore when the driver lost control and hit a guardrail, said Toronto police Duty Insp. Phillip Sinclair. The car then careened into a concrete pillar.

“Upon impact, the vehicle then caught fire,” Sinclair told reporters.

When firefighters arrived on the scene, the car was fully engulfed in flames, said Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop, who spoke alongside Sinclair.

Once the blaze was extinguished, firefighters found four people inside the vehicle. All four were pronounced dead at the scene, Sinclair said.

In a news release issued Friday, police said three men — aged 26, 29 and 32 — died, alongside a 30-year-old woman.

5th person in vehicle saved by passing Canada Post driver

A 25-year-old woman was pulled from the burning car by a passing Canada Post driver who stopped to help.

Rick Harper, 73, said he was starting his overnight shift when he saw the wreck on fire and a few cars pulled over next to it already. He said he stopped to offer the fire extinguisher he had in his truck.

“Any human in their right mind is going to stop and help,” he said in a phone interview on Saturday. “So I stopped and grabbed the fire extinguisher.”

A few people were already standing by the Tesla, he said, banging on the windows.

“Then somebody was yelling, ‘You got a bar? You got a bar? Somebody’s in there,'” he said.

The front end of the car was on fire and badly smashed, Harper said, but the flames hadn’t reached the back of the vehicle yet. None of the doors would open, he said.

WATCH | Four dead after crash on Lake Shore Boulevard:

4 killed in single-car crash in downtown Toronto

Four people were killed and another person injured in a single-vehicle crash in downtown Toronto early Thursday, police say. According to police, the driver lost control of the vehicle and slammed into a barrier.

Harper said he grabbed a bar from his truck and swung at the back window before passing it to another bystander who successfully broke the glass and pulled a woman from the back seat.

Harper said the woman was shaken. She was able to walk to the curb and sit down, where one of the bystanders consoled her, he said, but she wasn’t able to say anything.

“You could see the fear in her eyes. You could see the anguish,” Harper said. “And nobody at that point thought there was anybody else in the car. No indication.”

The car was too dark and smoky, and the flames were getting bigger, he said. So Harper said he left the scene and went on with his shift because he feared he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he went home. He only learned later, on the news, that four people had died in the crash.

“I was totally shocked,” he said.

Harper later called investigators to tell them his experience, and he said they told him the woman he had helped save was recovering well.

Investigation into crash continues

The circumstances of the crash and causes of the subsequent fire are still under investigation, and police appealed for any witnesses or anyone with dashcam video of the collision to contact Traffic Services.

“Certainly the intensity of the fire is directly linked to the battery cells in the Tesla,” Jessop said, quickly adding that emergency services have responded to many “horrible fires” in gasoline-powered vehicles.

“So, I don’t want to suggest or comment until the investigation is complete,” he continued.

Jessop said that generally, electric vehicle fires require “exponentially more water” to put out. Disposing of the battery cells afterward is especially complex because there is a risk they can catch fire again “weeks and weeks later” due to a process known as thermal runaway, where a current causes the battery to heat up, which then increases the current, in turn causing the temperature to continue rising.

Jessop said a battery cell from the Tesla was ejected during the crash. It had to be removed from the scene in a dumpster and covered in sand, he added.

Toronto Fire has spent the last year developing new protocols for fighting battery-related fires.

“This is an evolving technology, and we will continue to do our research and to work with our jurisdictional peers across North America to make sure we have the best practices in the City of Toronto,” he said.