Three men who claim to have been the first on scene at a deadly crash in North York last weekend have come forward after a public appeal from Toronto police.
Speaking exclusively to CP24 Tuesday night, 21-year-old Anthony Vasile described what he and his friends saw on the night of the crash, which claimed the lives of three young people.
Vasile said he first was alerted to the accident, which occurred in the area of Jane Street and Sheppard Avenue at around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, when he heard a “big bang.”
“I just thought it was a bomb or something, like a really, really big explosion. So my first reaction was to go over and look, like I wanted to see what happened,” he told CP24.
He said he quickly spotted a crashed car nearby and saw a man bleeding with his arm sticking out of the vehicle.
“I couldn’t stand there and just not do anything,” Vasile said.
That’s when he and his friends, 21-year-old Roberto Reyes and 27-year-old Christian Hernandez, say they pulled the man from the vehicle.
“I checked inside the cars to see if he had a seatbelt on or anything, because he looked very uncomfortable, he was in an awkward position in the cars,” Reyes said at the scene of the crash Tuesday night.
“I asked is he OK. He wasn’t responding. He murmured something. It was hard to pull through what it was but the moment that happened, the car was smoking, I smelled a bit of gas and it was just a quick reaction, we need to get him out of the car. From there we grabbed him out, brought him to the road.”
Police previously said they were searching for Good Samaritans who assisted at the scene following the crash and said they believed that one of these people went by the name “Tony.”
Police could not confirm if the three men who spoke to CP24 last night are in fact the Good Samaritans they were searching for.
The witnesses say they provided police with a statement on Tuesday night detailing what they saw.
Police say speed a factor in fatal crash:
According to police, the crash occurred after an Acura, heading southbound on Jane Street near Sheppard Avenue, collided with a Mercedes Benz. The Acura then lost control, struck another vehicle and hit a light standard, ejecting four out of the five occupants.
Three people, a 21-year-old woman, a 19-year-old man and a 23-year-old man, were pronounced dead at the scene and police say the man who was pulled from the car is in hospital in life-threatening condition. One other man was taken to hospital in serious but non-life-threatening condition.
On Tuesday night, the family of Ravina Budhooram identified the 21-year-old Seneca College student as one of the three victims killed in the crash.
Speaking to CTV News, Budhooram's father described his daughter as a “kind-hearted girl that left an impression on everyone she met.”
Friends identified the two men killed in the crash Wednesday as cousins Rivera Ramsahai and Taj Gangoo.
Police are still investigating the circumstances around the crash but say speed was a factor.
