‘Oh my God, this is serious stuff!’: Witness recounts London, Ont., crash that injured four people

SIU involved after collision sent four people to the hospital, with life-threatening injuries sustained. CTV’s Sean Irvine reports.

A rush hour crash in a busy London intersection has left two men seriously hurt and a 67-year-old woman fighting for her life, according to the province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU).

About 18 hours after the violent collision, a smashed pickup truck and a flipped SUV remained on the northwest boulevard of Queens Avenue and William Street.

Shortly before 4 p.m. Wednesday, multiple people in the area reported hearing a “thunderous bang.”

Witness Jeff Taylor described it in a different way, saying, “It was like a big explosion, and then suddenly the car flipped over, and I went, ‘Oh my God, this is serious stuff!’”

Seconds after the collision, an off-camera witness told CTV News that he ran out of a nearby building only to see a man, bloodied in the face, running north on William.

He then turned to the SUV, where he said three people were injured.

The witness said one person appeared to be thrown from the vehicle, while two others were trapped.

He told CTV News he did what he could to keep the injured people alert until police and firefighters arrived.

“They had to use the jaws of life, and they had to cut the car open and everything,” he said. “And then there’s another person they had to use the defibrillator on. They were actually doing CPR on him, and it was like 15, 20 minutes, it was constant.”

Another witness and a nearby property manager, who viewed a security video, suggest the black pickup truck was traveling northbound on William while the black SUV was traveling west on Queens Avenue when they collided.”

The cause of this collision is now part of the SIU investigation.

The police oversight agency has confirmed that the London police attempted to pull over the driver of the truck, which had a passenger in its bed, before the crash happened.

SIU investigators report the driver of the pickup truck fled the scene.

As the investigation continues, many of those in the neighbourhood remain traumatized and shocked by the scene.

“It really is tough. And those who saw some of the people who were injured, that must have been quite awful, really,” said Patrick Monaghan.