It was an accident so horrific that even though it happened at around 12:30am Wednesday morning, it affected rush hour traffic more than eight hours later.
Police spent much of Wednesday morning cleaning up, after a fiery crash killed two people and shut down a large section of the westbound 401 at Warden Ave.
It began after a driver in a Chevrolet Cobalt apparently attempted to make a lane change in the collector lanes without being aware there was a tractor-trailer coming up beside him.
That’s when disaster struck.
“The driver lost control and he actually swerved under the wheels of the big rig,” explains O.P.P. Sgt. Cam Woolley. “The car got wedged underneath, burst into flames and the truck actually overturned and went right through the guardrails. It was carrying 50,000 pounds … of paper and it caught on fire. The truck driver escaped, but unfortunately the car's completely crushed and we have two victims that died in the crash.”
The small vehicle was virtually melted in the intense heat that followed and only a shell of the car remains as mute evidence of the blaze.
The names of the victims haven’t been released, but the driver was a 22-year-old husband and father from Quebec. The body of the passenger was so badly burned, authorities are said to be having trouble determining if it was a man or a woman.
Tow truck driver Jason McCormack has observed a lot of wrecks. But he’s never seen one quite like this. “It bothers you,” he admits. “You think about it. It haunts you once in awhile.”
As crews struggled to clear the mess, a long stretch of North America's busiest highway from Warden all the way to the 404 was closed.
That created the expected chaos during the morning rush, with drivers who had no choice but to use the 401 stuck in endless delays and those seeking alternatives equally bogged down in traffic.
Things were much easier on the way back, after the highway finally re-opened just after noon.
The Toronto SUN reported that they were able to retrieve info from the "black box" chip that controls airbag deployment registering a speed of 157 KM/Hr just before impact.
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