Arenas: ‘Fighting time’ to escape burning truck

LOS ANGELES — Southern California basketball recruit Alijah Arenas has provided the first details of the car crash that left him in an induced coma in April.

Initially disoriented after crashing his Tesla Cybertruck into a tree, Arenas said he felt panic as smoke filled the front cabin and the doors wouldn’t open.

“I was fighting time,” Arenas said during a news conference Tuesday.

Arenas, whose father Gilbert played in the NBA, was involved in the single-car crash last April when he said the Cybertruck’s keypad and steering wheel wouldn’t respond. Arenas said he awoke to find the passenger side of the dashboard engulfed in flames and tried to use his digital key to escape, only to find the Tesla app had locked him out.

“I tried to open the door and the door wasn’t opening,” he said.

Arenas moved to the back seat and tried to break out the window, but wasn’t able to. He doused himself with a water bottle to cool his body down and spent nearly 10 minutes in the burning car before finally busting out the driver’s side window and falling into a few inches of water from a broken fire hydrant as bystanders helped pull him to safety.

Arenas spent six days in the hospital following the accident but did not suffer major injuries.