'So scary': Flying shovel misses Mississauga driver by just centimetres
It started as a routine drive for Komal Syed.
“I went on the 403 from Winston Churchill”, the Mississauga resident told CTV News Toronto. “I just had two...exits to take.”
It was just before 11 a.m. on Monday and Syed was headed to an appointment. She says she noticed a white sedan pull into the lane in front of her, causing her to reduce her speed. It was then she noticed something was odd about the car.
“It’s bumper started moving. And I was like, okay it seems like it’s bumper is coming off. And next thing I hear - a crash.”
Police are warning people to properly secure their cargo after a metal shovel flew into the windshield of an Ontario driver's car.
That crash was caused not by a bumper, but by a shovel flying through her windshield just centimetres from her face.
“I honestly don’t know where the shovel came from,” Syed said. “From what I recall, the bumper was moving. The bumper seemed to be coming off, but it wasn’t. Eventually what was in my car was a shovel.”
Syed says in the moment she managed to remain relatively calm.
“I turned and saw this shovel in my windscreen and I realized that, OK this is pretty big,” she said with a slight chuckle. “I mean I obviously screamed and I must have panicked, but I didn’t swerve luckily.”
Syed pulled to the side of the road and surveyed the damage. A cell phone video she took at the time shows the extent of the damage. She said she didn’t even realize that she was covered in broken glass until a tow truck driver who had stopped to help pointed it out.
While she recounts the story with a nervous laugh now, she says she didn’t realize until much later just how different the incident could have been if they shovel had hit the windshield in a different place.
Komal Syed's car is photographed after a metal shovel flew into her windshield.“The next day when I shared it, and I was repeating what happened, that’s when it hit me that it could have been anywhere.”
Syed says she drove the same route the next morning in order to dissuade any fears she might have about safety. And says she has a message for other highway drivers in the hopes that others won’t have to go through what she has.
“If someone is going to go on the highway with tools or equipment, please make sure it’s secured properly. Because this is just like ... so scary.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
Majority of Canadians believe in life after death: Angus Reid survey
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.
MyPillow, owned by U.S. election denier Mike Lindell, formally evicted from Minnesota warehouse
A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used.