‘A miracle no one was seriously hurt,’ says witness to spectacular collision in Toronto’s Greektown

Zanne Fernwood was running some errands on her motorbike in Toronto’s Greektown area late Monday afternoon when she unexpectedly became a witness to a spectacular crash involving a black hot rod.

“I heard this giant roar behind me,” Fernwood told CP24.com on Monday evening.

The area resident was travelling eastbound Danforth Avenue, just past Pape, at around 4 p.m. when she said she was cut off by the driver of a custom Model T Ford moments before he aggressively tried to pass a small sedan in front of her.

Fernwood said the motorist was driving at at least 65 kilometres an hour when he swerved to the right then cut sharply left into the driveway of the nearby Ontario Line construction zone as he tried to get by the other driver.

“He was just jerking wildly on the steering wheel,” she said, adding that the vehicle then went on two wheels as its driver lost control and ran into some kind of pole before hitting the fence of a CafeTO patio on the south side of the street.

The fence of a CafeTO patio on Danforth Avenue was damaged in a single-vehicle collision on Aug. 19. (Zanne Fernwood photo)

Fernwood said she pulled over to the right to get out of harm’s way when all of this happening.

The crash caused a male passenger to “shoot” out of the vehicle, she said, adding that she saw the driver fly into the air in an arch shape before landed on the road in an oncoming lane of traffic. The passenger ended up on the sidewalk, Fernwood said.

“Both guys just got up and walked away. They could have died or the vehicle could have shot into a store or a patio,” said Fernwood, who was very shaken by what she’d just witnessed.

“They were going so fast and they were turning so sharply at such a high-rate of speed and they were not wearing seatbelts. … It’s a miracle no one was seriously hurt.”

Police said that the passenger of the vehicle was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

No one else was hurt.

But things didn’t end there, said Fernwood, as it appeared that the gas pedal of the vehicle involved in the collision was somehow depressed spinnng the wheels and eventually causing a tire to blow, which then caught fire spewing thick, black, acrid smoke into the air.

“It was all very noisy and smelly. AlI can taste is gas and burned rubber,” she said.

A portion of Danforth Avenue was closed for a few hours as police investigated, but has since reopened.

Toronto police, who were called to the scene shortly before 4 p.m., have not said if they will be laying any charges against the driver at this time.