The young witness to the deadly California Cybertruck crash on Thanksgiving that killed three of his friends told cops that he saw the “ball of flame” and how he tried to frantically save the passengers from the burning wreck.
New bodycam videos were recently released showing the moments after a drunk and coked-up Soren Dixon, 19, smashed the Cybertruck into a retaining wall — killing himself and pals Jack Nelson, 20, and Krysta Tsukahara, 19.
“I turned the corner, and I just see a car in a ball of flame,” Matthew Riordan, a friend who was driving behind the Cybertruck, tells an officer at the scene.
The Tesla belonged to Dixon’s grandparents.
“I just saw the back of it, and I knew it was the Cybertruck. So, I stopped, and I got out. I tried to open the doors, but everything was so damaged — I got a stick, and I broke the front and back windows.
I pulled the front passenger out, but there was too much fire and the airbags — and I couldn’t get to the rest of them.”
Riordan managed to pull Jordan Miller, 20, from the smoldering wreckage but by the time he got to the back window, the fire was raging, and it was too late to save the others.
The dead passengers all had alcohol and cocaine in their systems.
The police officer asks Riordan if Dixon looked visibly intoxicated when he left the party, and if he thought Dixon was able to drive.
“Legally, no. Physically, from a visible standpoint, yes,” the young man answered the officer, according to the video obtained by KTVU through a public records request.
Hundreds of photos were also released showing the mangled aftermath.
The three friends died from asphyxia due to smoke inhalation in the car. Police officers who responded to the crash were unable to put out the flames until firefighters arrived.
Another police video captured the moment Miller’s father learned his son was the lone survivor of the crash.
The father arrived at the scene about three hours after but didn’t appear to know what had happened.
A Piedmont police officer tells the father the Cybertruck was involved in a crash.
“With a pedestrian? Is everything OK?” the father first asks.
Then the officer tells him that his son is the only survivor.
“What?” the father said.
“That’s all the information I can give you,” the officer said.
Miller was taken to the hospital with severe burns and was in surgery.
“I know the family…. People in the car died?” the father then said, sighing.
The officer confirmed, pleading to let authorities announce the news to their families.
“S–t!” the father said. “I gotta go.”
Dixon had a BAC of 0.195% — more than twice the legal limit — when he drove the speeding Cybertruck off the road and crashed into a retaining wall, causing the vehicle to burst into flames.
All four occupants were graduates of Piedmon High School and were home from college for the holiday break.
“Officers determined that a combination of driving under the influence of drugs and unsafe speed were the causes” of the crash, California Highway Patrol confirmed in a preliminary report.
The three died from asphyxia due to smoke inhalation in the car — and burns were also a “significant” factor in their deaths, which were ruled accidental, according to the autopsy report.
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