Julia Franklin couldn’t believe what she saw on St. Laurent Boulevard Wednesday afternoon. “It was crazy. It looked like a scene from a movie,” Franklin said. “Just a guy running out of a rolled car and just bolting. It was pretty intense.” Dramatic video on social media captured by Franklin’s daughter London shows a man crawling out of an overturned SUV near the Highway 417 off-ramp. “He ran in front of my car right here and he’s like ‘stop, stop’ and he’s completely panicked. I’m like ‘this man is in shock,’” Franklin said. Franklin says the man then ran across four lanes of traffic and kept going. She followed him in her vehicle. “I noticed a cop was having a hard time doing a U-turn, so I just started going after him and then the cop eventually caught up, and I let him do his job.” Ottawa Police would not comment on the circumstances around the crash, only saying they responded to a call for service in the area. They also wouldn’t say why the area was shut down for nearly 12 hours. The province’s Special Investigations Unit is not involved. The SUV collided with another vehicle before it ended up on its roof. The driver of that car said he was turning left onto St. Laurent from the highway when he saw an SUV going fast. He says the driver tried to swerve around him but lost control and clipped his vehicle before the SUV left the road. Paramedics say the man was taken to hospital in serious but stable condition. Witnesses say the man was arrested nearby but police would not confirm that or if any charges have been laid.
