'It was pretty intense:' Driver rear-ended by 14-year-old recounts fiery collision on Hwy. 401

John Tzannis says he is lucky he wasn’t more seriously injured after a 14-year-old driver rear-ended him on Highway 401 in Mississauga, sending his work van spinning into a concrete barrier early Friday morning.

John Tzannis says he is lucky he wasn’t more seriously injured after a 14-year-old driver rear-ended him on Highway 401 in Mississauga, sending his work van spinning into a concrete barrier early Friday morning.

The collision occurred shortly after 6 a.m. in the eastbound collector lanes of the highway near Mississauga Road.

“All I felt was something hit me from behind in the rear drivers’ side and it just spun me around,” Tzannis told CTV News Toronto on Friday. “The spinning, it was pretty intense.”

He added that two of his tires lifted off of the ground and when they landed back down, the airbags in his van deployed. The van ultimately came to a stop when it crashed into a concrete barrier, he said.

“Had that thing flipped, I would have been in some serious trouble,” Tzannis said.

“I was pretty lucky to be honest with you. I could have got clipped by another truck behind me (or) a tractor-trailer, because you know it is pretty fast on that highway.”

The impact of the collision sent the vehicle the 14-year-old was driving into a nearby ditch, police said. At one point, the vehicle in the ditch caught fire.