Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A calamity was narrowly averted in downtown Vancouver just after half time during the Canada-Qatar World Cup match.
A Tesla sped out of Vancouver's downtown court parking lot at around 4:20 p.m. PT, just two blocks from watch parties on Granville Street and roughly a kilometre from BC Place stadium, where the match was underway.
The car slammed into a tree on the edge of the busy Robson Square pedestrian plaza, missing crowds of people.
Vancouver police immediately arrested the driver, who was bleeding from his head but seemed alert and even smiled at the smashed vehicle. He was later wheeled off in a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.
Stephen Alhelm-White, a 66-year-old local nurse, says he and dozens of others were standing nearby when the sedan smashed into the tree with enough force to lift its back end up off the ground.
"If he went a bit to the left, there would be about eight of us that are not alive anymore," he told The Globe immediately after the incident. "If the tree wasn't there, we would have been done."
The Globe has reached out to Vancouver police for more details. #Vancouver #FIFA #WorldCup
A calamity was narrowly averted in downtown Vancouver just after half time during the Canada-Qatar World Cup match.
A Tesla sped out of Vancouver's downtown court parking lot at around 4:20 p.m. PT, just two blocks from watch parties on Granville Street and roughly a kilometre from BC Place stadium, where the match was underway.
The car slammed into a tree on the edge of the busy Robson Square pedestrian plaza, missing crowds of people.
Vancouver police immediately arrested the driver, who was bleeding from his head but seemed alert and even smiled at the smashed vehicle. He was later wheeled off in a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.
Stephen Alhelm-White, a 66-year-old local nurse, says he and dozens of others were standing nearby when the sedan smashed into the tree with enough force to lift its back end up off the ground.
"If he went a bit to the left, there would be about eight of us that are not alive anymore," he told The Globe immediately after the incident. "If the tree wasn't there, we would have been done."
The Globe has reached out to Vancouver police for more details. #Vancouver #FIFA #WorldCup
