'All of a sudden I started smelling smoke': Woman recounts escaping from burning vehicle on Hwy. 401
CTV
A 32-year-old woman says she is lucky to be alive after her car randomly caught fire while she was driving on Highway 401 last weekend.
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.
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.
