'All of a sudden I started smelling smoke': Woman recounts escaping from burning vehicle on Hwy. 401
A 32-year-old Hamilton woman says she is lucky to be alive after her car randomly caught fire while she was driving on Highway 401 last weekend.
Jamie Lee Kerri-Mitchell said that she had no idea there was anything amiss in the minutes before her vehicle went up in flames on the highway near Hamilton at around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Video footage obtained by CTV News Toronto shows flames billowing from Kerri-Mitchell’s 2017 Hyundai Elantra moments after she escaped, with the help of an off-duty police officer and their wife.
“Everything was fine and I had just come off the off-ramp but then… I heard someone honk at me,” she recalled in an interview with CTV News Toronto on Monday.
- Download our app to get local alerts on your device
- Get the latest local updates right to your inbox
The mother of three said she initially thought they honked because she was driving too slowly and she proceeded to move over to the slow lane.
“All of a sudden I started smelling smoke,” she said. “My car within seconds just filled with black smoke and then I started feeling dizzy and my throat starting hurting.”
At that point, she said, she realized something was very wrong and proceeded to put on her four-ways and pull over to the shoulder of the road.
“(I) just remember sitting there for a second being like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s happening?’”
“I was like in a state of shock. I didn’t know should I run? Should I stay? Is it big? Everything was just like going at once and then everything went blank.”
At one point, she said she began to feel heat underneath her feet.
“I did not expect the car to already be on fire,” she said, adding that she then noticed woman and a man, who she later learned was an off-duty police officer, running toward her vehicle.
“I didn’t want to go through the driver’s side because there were so many vehicles that were going high speeds so I thought I’d get out of the passenger’s (side).”
She said just as she was stumbling out of the passenger’s side door, the off-duty officer and his wife had arrived to help.
“I looked down and the whole bottom of my car is on fire… They grab me and they start running back,” Kerri-Mitchell said.
Within 30 seconds the car was fully engulfed in flames, she said.
“You could see the tires exploding, the battery exploding,” she said. “The car was just a crisp. There was nothing left.”
After speaking to witnesses, Kerri-Mitchell said she later learned that her car was on fire while she was on the ramp.
“The car underneath was on fire dripping plastic and that is why people I guess were honking, trying to warn me,” she said. “But I had no sign. I had no idea. I didn’t see smoke. My car was driving fine.”
She said she is grateful to those who tried to alert her to the fire, particularly the off-duty officer and his wife, who also had children in their car at the time of the incident.
“I want to thank them for coming and saving me and trying to warn me,” she said tearfully.
“If I would have been in there… I wouldn’t have made it and my kids would not have a mom.”
With files from CTV News Toronto’s Sean Leathong
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Details, new photos emerge about suspect charged with murder in killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO
Prosecutors were beginning to take steps Tuesday to bring the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO back to New York to face a murder charge while new details emerged about his life and how he was captured.
Canada announces new sanctions against Chinese, Russian officials
Past and present senior Chinese officials, as well as Russian officials and collaborators, are the subjects of new human rights sanctions, the Canadian government said Tuesday.
Some added sugar sources are worse than others for disease risk, study suggests
Sugar isn’t helpful when looking to reduce heart disease risk –– but sweet drinks are the worst, according to a study. There are better sweet treats.
'Governor Justin Trudeau': Trump appears to mock PM in social media post
Amid a looming tariff threat, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump appears to be mocking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, referring to him as 'Governor Justin Trudeau' in a post on Truth Social early Tuesday.
'I never got the impression he would self-destruct:' Friends of suspect in fatal CEO shooting left in shock
Months before police identified Luigi Mangione as the man they suspect gunned down a top health insurance CEO and then seemingly vanished from Midtown Manhattan, another disappearing act worried his friends and family.
Google pulls McDonald's negative reviews over arrest in UnitedHealth murder
Google on Monday removed derogatory reviews about McDonald's MCD.N after the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson was arrested at its restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where police say a customer alerted a local employee about him.
Canadian man sentenced to prison for embezzling US$1.4M
U.S. authorities have sentenced a Canadian man to 20 months in prison for a US$1.4-million embezzlement scheme.
Freeland doesn't commit to meeting her own deficit target in fall economic statement
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is not committing to meeting the $40.1-billion deficit target she set for the government last year.
'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton receives Nobel Prize in physics
Artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton and co-laureate John Hopfield have received the Nobel Prize for physics at a ceremony in Stockholm.