Couple rescued from burning car
Good Samaritans pull unconscious woman from SUV after downtown crash leads to fire
A woman who was knocked unconscious in a downtown accident on Thursday afternoon may owe her life to two young men who pulled her out of the smoking wreckage.
Pedestrians came to the rescue of a 66-year-old man and his female passenger, who were inside a black SUV that slammed into a lamppost and convenience store at Bathurst and Harbord Sts.
Kyle Monaghan, a 23-year-old kids’ soccer coach, said he was driving north on Bathurst when he saw a cloud of grey smoke at the intersection and a crowd trying to pull the couple from the car.
The woman appeared unconscious, while the man was trying to move but couldn’t get out, he said. The crowd finally managed to pull the driver out of the smoking car.
“Then we’re trying to get the (woman) out from the other side,” in the front passenger seat, he said. “We’re trying to open the door, but it’s locked. We’re hitting the glass, telling her to wake up, and she’s not alert at all.”
At that point, the car burst into flames, he said. All around him, people were yelling “Get out of there!” and “It’s gonna blow!”
“The fear didn’t set in until they said the car was going to explode,” he recalled.
Two men in their mid-20s went through the driver’s side to pry the woman out, Monaghan said.
“There were two guys who did way more than me. I wish I could get their names for you.”
Police wouldn’t disclose their identities because they are witnesses to the crash.
Const. Clinton Stibbe said the black SUV was westbound on Harbord when it collided with a vehicle attempting a Uturn near Brunswick Ave. The SUV continued along Harbord “at a high rate of speed” until it hit and toppled a lamppost at the corner of Bathurst, spinning around it and ramming into the Stop n’ Go convenience store.
The driver suffered serious though not life-threatening injuries, while the fe- male passenger was more seriously injured, he said. No one else was hurt, according to police.
The couple may have been worse off if not for the Good Samaritans who came to their aid.
“We have a situation where two people stepped up and did what they needed to save a life,” Stibbe said. “And that, I can say, is something we should all aspire to do: to set a good example for society and put essentially someone else’s life before our own.”
Michelle Yng was working behind the counter on the Bathurst side of the corner store when she was startled by a “big sound.”
She has seen many accidents at that intersection, but never before has a car come flying through her store’s wall.
“Very lucky. If it was at the other side, maybe I would be gone.”