A cyclist has died after he became pinned underneath a delivery truck in Toronto's Little Italy neighbourhood on Wednesday.
Shortly before noon, Toronto police say a cyclist was travelling westbound on College Street just east of Ossington Avenue when he somehow “came off” his bike and came into contact with a truck travelling in the same direction.
“The information that we have is that the truck was in the passing lane waiting in traffic and began to move forward,” Const. Clint Stibbe said. “For reasons not yet determined, a cyclist was westbound on college and somehow came off that bike.”
Jill Rochon was inside her College Street store, Jill on the Beanstalk, when she said a customer alerted her to the commotion outside.
“We heard, ‘woah, woah, woah,’ because there was a big delivery truck that was backing up and the cyclist had gotten his tire stuck in the truck. People on the street were trying to get him to stop,” she said.
Rochon said she thought it was possibly a fight and rushed outside to find two people performing CPR on a man in the roadway. She said the man was suffering from a “huge wound” on his head.
“Fortunately two nurses were walking by at the time, they were heading to a conference, so they were able to assess the situation right away, start CPR and put pressure on the wound. That’s all they could do until the ambulance came,” she said.
Stibbe acknowledged that some of the initial calls made to police by witnesses claimed that the cyclist had fallen into the path of the vehicles but he said investigators have not yet proven that.
He added that the driver of the vehicle involved remained at the scene and is cooperating with police in their investigation.
“Obviously we need to determine how that individual came off that bicycle. Was it through the action of the rider, was it something on the roadway, was it contact with a vehicle? We haven’t yet determined how that happened,” he said. “Suffice to say that person ended up underneath the rear wheels of that vehicle.”
Police have closed College Street in both directions, between Ossington Avenue and Shaw Street, as a traffic crews investigate the incident.
Stibbe said he expects the area to be closed off for several hours and urged motorists to avoid the area.
“Basically we’re in a situation where we need to determine what happened so this can be prevented from happening in the future,” he said.
