Police have confirmed a 26-year-old man who escaped a burning vehicle at Wonderland Road and Riverside Drive Friday suffered a stab wound in addition to severe burns.

But in release issued late Friday Police said "there is no reason to believe there is any risk to public safety"

Police say the man is 26 years old but have not released his name. They said he was taken to hospital and is in critical but stable condition,

Shannon Keith Best, 38, was driving to work about 8 a.m. when he saw a minivan ablaze in a parking lot at Riverside Drive and Wonderland Road.

After watching a man engulfed in flames stumble from the minivan, Best said he drove his pickup truck over the curb to get closer.

“He was on fire. It was something you see in movies,” said Best, the first person on the scene.



Shannon Best took this photo of the burning vehicle at Riverside Drive and Wonderland Road. Best said he was the first person on the scene Friday morning.

Best said at first he couldn’t reach the man, who was standing near the burning van, because the flames and heat from the fire were too intense. But after the man fell on his back, Best rushed toward him.

“I grabbed him, patted him, started to pull him, then another fellow came up (and) helped me pull him the rest of the way,” said Best, who retrieved a blanket from his truck for the badly injured man and stayed with him until paramedics arrived.

“He just kept screaming,” said Best, adding the man’s skin was peeling on his arms.

Best said the man told him he’d been stabbed and appeared to have multiple bleeding puncture wounds on the left side of his torso.

The confused man also rambled something about another person being in the vehicle, Best added.

On Saturday Police said the investigation was continuing and they did not release any more details including whether another person was in the vehicle.

Emergency responders were called to a vehicle fire at Riverside and Wonderland about 8:10 a.m.

Paramedics took a man with life-threatening injuries to Victoria Hospital, said Middlesex-London EMS operations superintendent Paul Van Dyk.

Police cordoned off a large area of the parking lot on the southeast corner of the busy ­intersection.

Investigators examined the burned-out van, while others searched the nearby embankment leading to the Thames River.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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