One person is dead after a wheel flew off a pickup truck and struck another vehicle on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) in St. Catharines on Tuesday, provincial police say.
According to Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), the crash occurred on the Toronto-bound lanes near Niagara Street just before noon.
“Around 11:44 a.m., Niagara OPP police were notified of a serious collision involving a flying truck wheel that came off a pickup truck that was travelling Fort Erie-bound on the QEW approaching the Garden City Skyway. That wheel bounced into the Toronto-bound lanes of the QEW, colliding with a Toronto-bound vehicle with two occupants,” OPP said in a video post on X.
“The wheel then bounced off that vehicle and ended up over the barrier in the City of St. Catharines.”
Police initially said the separated wheel had struck two vehicles but later clarified to say it hit one vehicle.
The driver in the vehicle struck by the wheel, a 53-year-old man from the U.S., was pronounced dead at the scene. A 52-year-old man, a passenger in the vehicle, was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police said the driver of the pickup truck that lost its wheel, a 33-year-old man from Niagara Falls, N.Y., has been charged with Detached Part and operating an Unsafe vehicle.
The Toronto-bound lanes of the QEW were closed at Glendale Avenue in Niagara-on-the-Lake, as well as the Fort Erie-bound lanes between Niagara Street and Welland Avenue. The area has since reopened to traffic.