The three teenagers killed and one badly burned when a Tesla Cybertruck crashed and ignited in a wealthy town were athletes and old friends.
Soren Dixon, Jack Nelson, and Krysta Tsukahara, all 19, died in the fiery crash in Piedmont, California, about 3am local time on Wednesday.
Jordan Miller, 20, was pulled alive from the SUV but was seriously burned. His mother Samantha Miller told DailyMail.com he was still in the ICU but expected to survive.
Cops said they were investigating speeding as a possible cause of the horrific tragedy, which came after the friends traveled home for Thanksgiving to see loved ones.
All four were old friends who graduated Piedmont High School in 2023 and were sophomores in universities around the country.
Nelson and Dixon were stars on the Piedmont HS lacrosse team and Nelson also played junior varsity football and varsity soccer with Miller.
Krysta Tsukahara, 19, was killed along with two friends in a Tesla Cybertruck crash in Piedmont, east of Oakland
Soren Dixon, 19, was also killed in the Cybertruck crash. He studied at the University of Southern California after graduating Piedmont and all four friends had returned for Thanksgiving
Jack Nelson (pictured) and Dixon were stars on the Piedmont HS lacrosse team and Nelson also played junior varsity football and varsity soccer
Dixon continued playing lacrosse at the University of Southern California and Nelson studied at the University of Colorado Boulder and joined the Sigma Nu fraternity.
Tsukahara was on the school’s golf team and competed around the state, and was studying at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.
Samantha Miller said her son, who was studying at the University of Wisconsin, was a passenger in the car, but declined to say who was driving.
She said he had his third surgery on Friday morning and was being watched over in hospital by his sisters Dylan and Maxine.
‘Jordan is still critical and in the ICU and he’s had some surgeries, and we’re hopeful that he is goin to recover. We’re just taking it day by day,’ she said.
‘We have reason to believe he will survive.’
Police said the car jumped the curb and collided with a concrete wall before striking a tree and going up in flames, killing three of the passengers and injuring the fourth.
The Cybertruck burst into flames when it crashed in the ritzy Piedmont neighborhood, east of Oakland, at Hampton Road and King Avenue about 3am on Wednesday
Jordan Miller, 20, (left, pictured with his sisters Dylan and Maxine, and parents Samantha and Stephen) survived the crash but was badly burned
Miller’s mother said he was still in the ICU but expected to survive
It is unclear who was driving the truck at the time of the smash, and cops indicated speed as a possible factor, adding their probe into what happened was ongoing.
All four of the teens came from wealthy families whose homes were worth several million dollars each.
Their mothers, Kristen Dixon and Stannye Nelson are board members of The Cancer League, and Nelson’s father Todd is general manager of Abbott Diabetes Care.
‘We are just devastated. I know the family whose son is in the hospital right now. I know the other families,’ neighbor Aileen Desoto told a local news station.
‘I know he has surgery. He is in recovery. He had some burns. He is under sedation. So, we are hoping he recovers.’
AJ Harris, a Piedmont HS basketball player and friend of both Dixon and Nelson, mourned both of them with photos of the trio together since they were young kids.
‘I can’t even describe how I’m feeling right now. I love and miss you so much,’ he wrote on Instagram.
‘The two happiest guys I’ve ever met, you lit up every single room and brought joy to everyone around you. All the way from 2nd grade on, there was never a dull moment. Two of the kindest people I’ve ever met.
‘You both had such a huge impact on my life and I will never be able to tell you how thankful I am for you. Always there for me no matter what.
Tsukahara was on the school’s golf team and competed around the state, and was studying at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia
Nelson (right, pictured with his friend AJ Harris) was mourned by friends online
Bronson Boyle (left), who shared a room with Dixon at USC, shared a photo of them standing in their dorm room calling him ‘the best roommate and friend I ever could’ve asked for’
‘I will miss you everyday for the rest of my time. I know you are watching over us and keeping us safe. I love you both.’
Bronson Boyle, who was Dixon’s roommate at USC, shared a photo of them standing in their dorm room calling him ‘the best roommate and friend I ever could’ve asked for’.
‘Our first night as roommates we snuck onto the new north roof, and just talked for hours, getting to know one another,’ he wrote.
‘That first day encounter, and every day of the 8 months that followed as roommates, were filled with unpredictable fun. Always upbeat, ever inviting, and ferociously fun – that’s who you were. I’m so glad to have known you.
‘I’ll always remember you as brother-one who was righteous beyond belief. Rest in peace man. I’ll miss ya every day. I’ll raise a glass to you every day forever.’
Sandy Martin, who was their middle school teacher, said: ‘They are smart kids, they are good kids. They are also so, kids who were very supportive of their friends.’
The morning after the crash, as families gathered for a holiday feast, the victim’s friends and community members spent time at the crash site, laying flowers and lighting candles around a tree while hugging and crying in each other’s arms.
Several runners in the local 5K Turkey Trot stopped by earlier in the day to lay bouquets.
A half dozen people in their late teens and early 20s gathered on the sidewalk. One teen, pulling up in a black BMW and wearing a blue hoodie and sweatpants, had texted friends to join him at the site.
Miller’s mother said he had his third surgery on Friday morning and was being watched over in hospital by his sisters
Dixon (second from left) and Nelson (far right) in a photo from high school
AJ Harris, a Piedmont HS basketball player and friend of both Dixon (second from left) and Nelson (right), mourned both of them with photos of the trio together since they were young kids
Miller with his sister Maxine at her graduation from the University of Wisconsin, where they both studied
He wiped away a tear as he told DailyMail.com that his older brother was out enjoying the night with the vehicle’s occupants, shortly before the crash.
‘My brother was with them that night, just hanging out, catching up from college,’ the young man said.
‘All of them went to Piedmont High School and all were athletes, and they were at our house every other weekend,’ he added. ‘They were more than friends to my brother and my family.
‘I can’t imagine what my brother is going through right now,’ he said. ‘I’m just hear praying.’
An elderly woman who didn’t know the victims stopped by to pay her respects and look over the crash site.
‘This is just an absolutely tragedy, especially for such a tight community like this,’ the woman told DailyMail.com.
‘We had another local student die in a crash the 1980s, and people around here still talk about it.
‘It makes you not want to have an electric car,’ the woman said, based on early reports that the fire quickly spread out of control. ‘If they were in a different car, maybe there would have been a different outcome.’
People visit a memorial displayed for victims of a Tesla Cybertruck crash in Piedmont
Dixon and Nelson were both players on the Piedmont HS lacrosse team, and a lacrosse ball and stick were left at the memorial in their honor
Photos of Tsukahara and her friends are pinned to a tree near the crash site
Police chief Jeremy Bowers said another car had been trailing the Tesla and pulled the survivor out of the wreckage.
‘The solo vehicle that was involved in the crash, there was another vehicle that came after it, that was following behind and came upon the vehicle as it was fully engulfed,’ Bowers said.
‘The individual exited the car and was able to pull the person out, but the nature of the vehicle was a Cybertruck and the heat was just too intense.’
Bowers said it is possible the victims and the man who tried to rescue them all knew each other and had been together before the crash.
The front of the Cybertruck was completely destroyed. The electric vehicle’s battery is not believed to have caught fired following the collision.
Authorities that fire crews tried to douse the fireball with extinguishers, but the intensity of the flames was too hot.
Investigators believe speed was a factor in the crash, but are still in the early stages of finding out exactly what happened
‘Due to the quick nature of being able to suppress the fire, we don’t think the main lithium battery of the car were on fire. But that’s going to be determined as part of the investigation,’ Piedmont Fire Chief David Brannigan said.
The local news station filmed the man who tried to rescue the victims being comforted by two others a short time later.
‘This is just a tragic loss of life,’ Bowers said. ‘We don’t know the cause of the collision and during the holiday season, our hearts go out to the families that are going to have to deal with this tragedy.’
The affluent community dedicate their Thanksgiving Turkey Trot to the victims and Mayor Jen Cavenaugh gave brief memorial remarks to open the event and led the community in a moment of silence.
