The only survivor of the October 24 fire was a woman in her 20s who was able to get to safety after a quick thinking passer-by smashed a window of the burning Model Y car to free her
Four friends died in a horrific car fire after they were unable to escape from a burning Tesla when a crash disabled its electronic doors.
The only survivor of the October 24 fire was a woman in her 20s who was able to get to safety after a passer-by smashed a window of the burning Model Y car.
Four other friends, identified as 25-year-old Neelraj Gohil, his sister Ketaba Gohil, 29, Jay Sisodiya and Digvijay Patel all lost their lives in the incident.
Rick Harper, a Canada Post employee, heroically used a metal pole to smash the car window, freeing the woman. In an interview with the Toronto Star he told reporters she “couldn’t open the doors” from inside of the crashed Tesla.
“I would assume the young lady would have tried to open the door from the inside, because she was pretty desperate to get out,” Harper said. “I don’t know if that was the battery or what. But she couldn’t get out.”
He described how the woman, the only survivor of the wreck, scrambled out of the car head-first after he smashed the window. Harper said he did not know anyone else was in the car at the time, because the smoke was so thick.
He has no way to know if they too were trying to escape the burning car using the unresponsive doors in their final moments. Investigators are still working to determine the cause of the crash, which happened after the Tesla hit a guardrail at speed on Toronto’s Lakeshore Boulevard East.
In the US there are nine investigations involving the Tesla Model Y, ranging from “unexpected brake activation” to “sudden unintended acceleration,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Tesla boasts its vehicles gave a “safety-first design” and says its vehicles are “the safest in the world”. There is a manual override in Tesla cars but the feature is not widely publicized, experts say.
In the event of a crash passengers are directed to pull away a palen in the door and tug at a cable underneath to open the doors, but safety watchdogs have said dazed or panicked crash victims may not be able to search for the feature after a car crash.
