College student burned alive after Tesla Cybertruck doors malfunctioned, trapped her inside following crash: suit
A California college student was burned alive when her ride, a Tesla Cybertruck, became a deathtrap — locking her and pals inside after the vehicle crashed and went up in flames, according to a pair of recent lawsuits.Three college students, including 19-year-old Krysta Tsukahara, were killed in the early-morning crash last November when their electronic vehicle burst into flames after striking a retaining wall and a tree in Piedmont, Calif.The Cybertruck driver, Soren Dixon, 19, and passenger Jack Nelson, 20, also died in the fiery Nov.
27 crash.A fourth passenger, Jordan Miller, was able to escape after an onlooker smashed the windscreen with a tree branch.But Tsukahara reportedly survived the initial crash and was fully conscious, but couldn’t escape the burning vehicle after the Cybertruck lost power, causing its electronic door release system to fail, according to a lawsuit filed by parents Carl and Noelle Tsukahara and seen by the San Francisco Chronicle.The teen died of smoke inhalation and burns after onlookers were unable to pull her and the other occupants from the truck, according to the lawsuit, which also sought damages from Dixon’s estate and that of the vehicle’s owner.Tesla doors are powered by a 12-volt battery, which can fail if the vehicle loses power during a crash, and the emergency manual interior door release is notoriously difficult to find, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Alameda County Superior Court.“It’s just a horror story.
Tesla knows that it’s happened and that it’s going to happen, and they are doing nothing but selling the car with a system that entraps people and doesn’t provide a way of extraction,” the family attorney Roger Dreyer told the Chronicle.The lawsuit includes more than 30 examples of publicized alleged problems with Tesla’s door systems and accuses the Elon Musk-owned company of showing a “conscious disregard” for consumer safety, having known about the issue for years.Tesla’s...