Two teenagers are dead and two others are badly injured after a 15-year-old boy took some friends for a ride and lost control of the wheel, according to police near Montreal.

Firefighters had to cut open a mangled Volkswagen Jetta to get the teenagers out after the vehicle struck a tree in Joliette, Que., at around 2 a.m. on Thanksgiving Monday.

Police say speed may have been a factor.

A 17-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy were killed. Two others, 13 and 16, went to hospital in critical condition.

The 15-year-old driver suffered only minor injuries and faces charges of criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death. The teenagers are all from Lavaltrie, northeast of Montreal.

Two local boys, Joshua and Isaac Lemay, told CTV Montreal that they had been on a joy ride with the same people in the same car days before the crash. They said the car had been going extremely fast.

Isaac Lemay, 13, said that taking parents’ cars offers young people a sense of freedom, but after the crash the brothers confessed to his father about partaking in the dangerous practice.

Joshua Lemay, 15, said of the boys who died: “It’s hard to think I won’t see them again.”

The Lemay brothers said joyriding happens frequently in rural areas.

Their father, Alain Lemay, said he has talked to the boys about the dangers, but there is only so much parents can do. He visited the family of one of the victims Monday to offer comfort, he said.

Neighbor Sylvie Jean said she has always been afraid that a police officer would one day knock on her door and say her son is dead, adding: “I can only imagine what those parents are feeling.”

With a report from CTV Montreal’s Rob Lurie