A 39-year-old male cyclist is dead following a crash involving a pickup truck and a streetcar in Toronto, just moments after the father had dropped off his seven-year-old daughter at school for the day.
The collision happened around 9 a.m. Wednesday on King Street near Cowan Avenue in the city’s Parkdale neighbourhood.
“All I saw was the truck pulling out and the streetcar spun it sideways and into the building,” Curly Reynolds, who witnessed the incident, told Global News.
Toronto police said a pickup truck travelling southbound on Cowan Avenue tried to cross King Street when a westbound streetcar struck it, sending it spinning out of control.
Shane Philips, whose apartment window is right above where the pickup truck came to a stop, grabbed a towel and ran out of his apartment to see if he could help.
He saw the truck and noticed the cyclist pinned under the rear tires.
“There was a man holding his head up and telling him to breathe and other people were crowded around him in shock,” Philips said.
The victim has been identified as David Delos Santos, by his sister-in-law Jocelyn Cerezo.
Cerezo told Global News Santos had just been going about his normal routine and was heading home after dropping his daughter off at the Holy Family Catholic School, just a couple of blocks away.
Santos worked as a super at a MetCap building on Tyndall Avenue, according to Cerezo.
Santos had moved to Canada from the Philippines with his daughter in 2014, after being sponsored by his wife.
Residents in the area are in shock and feel the incident could have been prevented.
“Too many people are in a rush in the morning,” Philips said. “At the end of the day, it’s the cyclist that gets killed because of a car accident.”
Police had closed King Street between Dunn and Spencer avenues due to the investigation, but the area has since been reopened.
—With a file from David Shum
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