Three international students have died, and another is in critical condition, after a “very violent” crash on Highway 427 in Etobicoke on Tuesday morning.
Ontario Provincial Police said the crash happened on the Highway 427 southbound off-ramp to Dundas Street at around 11:23 p.m. Monday.
OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said the collision reconstruction crews investigating the crash are describing it as “extreme high rates of speed.”
“The vehicle … with four occupants in the vehicle left the ramp, went over the concrete wall into the ditch where it was then vaulted into a concrete wall of Dundas Street,” Schmidt said.
The vehicle was then engulfed in flames, he continued. Toronto firefighters arrived and were able to extricate all four people.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, Schmidt said the vehicle’s occupants were all international students.
He said the passengers were a 20-year-old man and woman and a 17-year-old boy. The driver, a 21-year-old man, was in critical condition.
Schmidt said they were all residents of Toronto, in the country on study permits from Bangladesh.
Paramedics initially said two people were pronounced dead at the scene. Schmidt said these were the backseat passengers.
Two other people, a man and a woman, were taken to a trauma centre by paramedics in life-threatening condition.
In his first update on Tuesday, Schmidt said the female passenger was later pronounced dead in hospital, increasing the death toll to three people.
He said the driver remains in hospital with critical injuries.
“We’re very concerned about the manner and description of this crash,” Schmidt said. “Very violent collision that took place.”
The ramp was closed overnight for the investigation but has since reopened.
— with files from Global News’ Isaac Callan