Man killed in DVP crash

TORONTO, Ont. – A man has died after his SUV crashed and caught fire on the Don Valley Parkway, Thursday.

The crash involving the BMW occurred just before 11:30 a.m. approaching the Gerrard Street overpass.

A witness told 680News that the SUV was heading south on the DVP near Gerrard Street at a high rate of speed when it crashed.

“It was probably going about 150 kilometres or more. It was hard to tell, I was going 100 kilometres. It zipped by me on the right hand side, on the shoulder lane. Then it started to lose control and then the next thing you know, within seconds, there was a big fireball in front of me,” said the witness.

There was a lot of debris in the area, including a tire found across the river next to the highway. Construction workers, who happened to be nearby, had to stop working until it cleared.

“The smoke was covering the crane operator, we couldn’t work, we couldn’t see nothing,” said one construction worker.

Another witness told 680News, it was like a scene in a movie. “I thought he was being chased, I was looking for a pursuit car. It was scary.”

Police said the SUV was heading south on the DVP near Gerrard Street when it lost control, rolled over and caught fire.

Constable Clinton Stubby told 680News, “luckily, no one else was hurt.”

“Apparently there was a number of other vehicles that were struck by this motor vehicle, but there were no other injuries other than the fatality of the person in the vehicle that did catch fire,” said Constable Stibby.

The southbound lanes were closed from Bayview-Bloor to the Gardiner Expressway for around five hours. The northbound lanes had reopened earlier.

Watch video below, courtesy of: Basgarathas Thirugananam/680News listener

Police said the BMW clipped five vehicles before it rolled and caught fire. The man driving the SUV was pronounced dead at the scene.

It took investigators some time to reconstruct the scene because of the amount of debris scattered across the highway.