Two construction workers are critically injured after a 75-year-old driver of a Tesla drove through a fence into a construction area near a mall in Pickering on Friday morning, police say.
It happened at around 11 a.m. near The Shops at Pickering City Centre, which is located near Highway 401 and Liverpool Road.
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Speaking to reporters on Friday afternoon, Acting Sgt. Nicholas Gluckstein said a 75-year-old driver of a Tesla accelerated through the mall’s parking lot at “a high rate of speed,” drove through a fence into a construction area and struck two construction workers.
“The information we have right now is that he was in the parking lot looking for a parking space, as you would be at the mall, and unfortunately, for some reason unknown to us at the moment, he accelerated at an extreme high rate of speed,” Gluckstein said.
Durham police said each victim suffered critical, life-threatening injuries.
A 22-year-old woman was airlifted to a Toronto-area trauma centre and a 58-year-old man was taken to a local hospital via ground ambulance.
Gluckstein said the driver of the Tesla was sent to the hospital with minor injuries, adding that he has been cooperating with police in their investigation.
Police are asking anyone with additional information or footage of the incident to contact them.
“As you can imagine, this is quite a scary incident, very traumatic for all parties as well as the people working here, so we really want to determine exactly what happened and the state of mind from everybody that was involved,” Gluckstein said.
