4 Killed After a Tesla Crash Sparks Fire in Toronto: ‘A Very Horrific Scene’

Four people were killed — and one person was saved by a bystander — after their Tesla erupted in flames after crashing into a pillar on a roadway.

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

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

Sinclair noted in 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 looking into the possibility of “the intensity of the fire” being linked 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 Canada post worker Rick Harper — who “provided assistance” at the site of the crash around the time the “fire had started.”

"Thanks very much to that bystander," Sinclair said, per the outlet. "We have been speaking to them, and obviously they also (are) deeply affected by this incident, a very horrific scene for that bystander to step in."

Harper told CBC News and the Toronto Star that when he came upon the crash, there were others already gathered outside the vehicle who were pounding at the back passenger window as they couldn’t open the doors. He recalled to CBC News, "Then somebody was yelling, 'You got a bar? You got a bar? Somebody's in there.' "

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

“She came out fast, head first. She said nothing,” he recalled to the Toronto Star. “There were no words from anybody. We could see the fear in her eyes. She was letting out little screams.”

"You could see the fear in her eyes. You could see the anguish,” he told CBC News, adding, "And nobody at that point thought there was anybody else in the car. No indication.”

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

“I was totally shocked. It really hit me when I saw the report in the news that four had died," he said, adding that he "spoke to a couple of detectives" who told him the girl he rescued "was recuperating in the hospital."