The family of one of three college students who died in a Cybertruck crash in California filed a lawsuit in a bid to gain access to the Tesla Inc. pickup and better understand how their daughter died.
The driver and two passengers were killed while they were on Thanksgiving break in late November when the vehicle ran into a tree on a residential street and caught fire.
Carl Tsukahara, whose 19-year-old daughter, Krysta, was sitting in the back seat of the truck when it crashed, said Thursday he’s trying to find out what happened — and why.
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“Why did the driver have this car? Where were the kids throughout the night? Who was with whom?” he asked during an interview. “Why did the car catch on fire? Why couldn’t Krysta get out?”
A toxicology report found the driver had high levels of drugs and alcohol in his system and that Tsukahara had trace amounts of drugs and alcohol.
The wrongful death suit filed Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court targets the driver’s family but doesn’t name Tesla as a defendant.
The family of the driver, Soren Dixon, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Cybertruck Doors
Tsukahara wasn’t physically injured by the crash itself. Instead, an autopsy showed she died of asphyxiation when she couldn’t open the doors to get out.
A witness who tried to rescue Tsukahara and others in the vehicle told police, “I went back to the broken window and yelled for them to try and get out at this window. Krysta tried to come up, sticking her head from the back. I grabbed her arm to try to pull her towards me but she retreated because of the fire.” The rescuer was able to pull one passenger to safety. But the driver and a third passenger also died of asphyxiation.
Krysta’s death was caused by her inability to get out of the vehicle and being consumed in the fire that engulfed the vehicle, according to the family’s attorney, Roger Dreyer of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora LLP.
Dreyer said he has engineers who specialize in fire science and crash reconstruction, but they haven’t been able to inspect the Cybertruck.
“We can’t get access to the vehicle without permission from the owner,” he said. “And we can’t get data from Tesla without permission from the owner.”
