When Alijah Arenas opened his eyes, minutes after his Tesla Cybertruck struck a tree one morning this previous April, the five-star Chatsworth Excessive hoops phenom wasn’t certain the place he was or how he’d gotten there. His preliminary, disoriented thought was that he’d woken up at dwelling. However as he regained consciousness, Enviornment felt the seat belt wrapped tightly round his waist. He observed the Life360 app on his telephone, beeping. Outdoors the automobile, he may hear crackling sounds, like a campfire.
Then he felt the warmth like a sauna cranked to its highest setting. The passenger facet of the dashboard, Arenas may see, was already engulfed in flames. Smoke was filling the automobile’s entrance cabin. He may now not see out of the home windows.
Arenas reached for his iPhone, intent on utilizing his digital key to flee, solely to seek out the Tesla app had locked him out. Panic began to set in.
“I tried to open the door,” Arenas stated, “and the door isn’t opening.”
A crumbled Telsa Cybertruck rests adjoining to a tree following a crash involving high USC basketball recruit Alijah Arenas.
(Handout)
He tore off his seat belt and moved to the again seat, away from the smoke, scanning the automobile desperately for an exit technique. His coronary heart was pounding. The warmth was changing into insufferable. Then, he handed out.
Not more than 10 minutes earlier — and fewer than two miles up Corbin Avenue — Arenas had simply wrapped up a predawn exercise on the DSTRKT, a gymnasium in Chatsworth, the place he’d been working his means as much as 10,000 pictures that week.
One of many high hoops prospects in Southern California, Arenas was weeks away from graduating from Chatsworth Excessive after three years with the intention of becoming a member of USC a yr early in 2025. He was doing every thing he may to organize for that extraordinary leap.
Alijah Arenas describes for the primary time publicly how the steering wheel of his Tesla Cybertruck locked up and led to his fiery April wreck in Reseda.
“The wheel wasn’t responding like I was in the car,” Arenas stated pic.twitter.com/OUb2bBacfT
— Ryan Kartje (@Ryan_Kartje) June 24, 2025
He was on his means dwelling from the gymnasium, driving south on Corbin as he had so many instances earlier than, when Arenas observed that the Cybertruck — which is registered to his father, former NBA star Gilbert Arenas — was performing unusually. The automobile wasn’t studying that he left the gymnasium. The keypad stored flickering on and off.
After stopping at one crimson mild, he tried to modify lanes, solely to note that “the wheel wasn’t moving as easily as it should.” Drifting into the precise lane, he realized that he “can’t get back to the left.”
“So then a car is coming towards me, and I think that I’ll just pull over,” he stated. “So I speed up to pull over to the right in a neighborhood because there are cars parked on the street I’m on to the right. But when I’m speeding up to turn, I can’t stop. The wheel wasn’t responding to me — as if I wasn’t in the car.”
The Cybertruck careened as a substitute into a hearth hydrant, then a tree, earlier than bursting into flames.
Minutes felt like hours as he tried to flee the smoldering automobile. Drifting out and in of consciousness, Arenas did no matter he may to remain alert. He bit his lip as onerous as he may and clenched his nails into his pores and skin. He doused himself with water from a water bottle to chill his physique down. He tried to make as a lot noise as doable, yelling and banging on the glass. However the flames had been getting hotter, the smoke getting thicker.
“I’m panicking,” Arenas stated. “I was fighting time.”
He got down to break a window, figuring out Cybertruck home windows are supposed to be “unbreakable.” When his fingers ached from punching the glass, he began utilizing his ft. Then he handed out once more.
USC freshman Alijah Arenas, who survived a Cybertruck crash earlier this yr, talks with reporters on Tuesday.
(Ryan Kartje / Los Angeles Occasions)
When he wakened, “I realized my whole right side had caught on fire,” he stated.
However as he tore off his garments and doused himself in water once more, he heard a thud exterior the automobile window. Sirens wailed within the distance. Simply hold going, he advised himself.
He kicked on the driver’s-side window with every thing he had. Finally, he noticed a crack. He stored kicking, drifting briefly out of consciousness, earlier than the window fell away and fingers started pulling him from the car by his legs.
The subsequent factor he remembers feeling was a chilly rush, as if he’d jumped in a freezing river. A video of the crash scene obtained by TMZ reveals Arenas mendacity face down on the street in a couple of inches of water, whereas the damaged hydrant continues to spray into the air, after a gaggle of excellent Samaritans had come to his rescue.
In all, Arenas spent not less than 10 minutes within the burning automobile earlier than individuals who occurred to listen to the accident finally helped pull him to security. It’s not misplaced on him how fortunate he was.
“There are amazing people in this world that are willing to help and risk their own bodies for you,” Arenas stated. “For me, it was like, I don’t ever want to think about me ever again.”
Alijah Arenas, of Chatsworth Excessive, drives to the basket.
(Nick Koza)
The subsequent hours and days are nonetheless hazy for Arenas, who was whisked away to a close-by hospital, then one other. He was put right into a medically induced coma, a standard strategy for coping with excessive smoke inhalation.
When he lastly awoke, Arenas nonetheless couldn’t communicate. However immediately, panic set in. He questioned if his automobile had hit one other, or if anybody else had been harm.
Months later, he nonetheless can’t convey himself to put any blame elsewhere for what occurred. Regardless that there are not any indications that Arenas was at fault for his steering wheel locking up.
“Honestly, I take full responsibility,” Arenas stated. “Whether it was me, another car, a malfunction. I don’t really want to put anyone else in this situation — whoever made the car, anything. I want to take full responsibility for what I do. If I would’ve hurt somebody, that would have really taken a toll on me.”
Arenas spent six days within the hospital after the accident however suffered no main long-term accidents. Within the weeks that adopted, he took walks by means of his household’s neighborhood to regain his power. Alongside the way in which, neighbors showered him with flowers and nicely needs. Final month, the household welcomed the lads who saved Arenas into their dwelling to share their gratitude.
He’s nonetheless working his means towards becoming a member of USC for its summer season hoops practices, with some preliminary classwork nonetheless remaining earlier than his transition is full. However after formally enrolling at USC final week, Arenas stood on the follow court docket sideline on Tuesday morning, high-fiving teammates and calling out assignments, wanting each bit the a part of a five-star freshman who’s able to step in from Day One.
“His perspective is really unique,” USC coach Eric Musselman stated. “Even before the accident, when you talk to Alijah, it’s a unique thought process on how he views life and views the game of basketball and how he views his teammates.”
However there’s no mistaking, in Arenas’ thoughts, how lucky he’s to have survived — and what number of issues needed to go proper for that to be the case. He’s satisfied he was spared to assist another person in the identical means he was helped.
“It taught me a lot,” Arenas stated. “I’m very lucky — and not even just to be here. Just in general, in life.”
