A 20-year-old Tesla driver pleaded with a 911 operator to save his life as he was trapped in a burning car, according to a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla filed by his mother on Wednesday.
Samuel Tremblett, a Syracuse University student and fashion entrepreneur with his own clothing line, suffered “catastrophic” thermal and smoke inhalation injuries that caused his death after he was trapped in a blazing Tesla vehicle last October, according to the Massachusetts lawsuit.
“I’m stuck in a car crash … I can’t get out, please help me … I can’t breathe,” Tremblett said in a devastating 911 call revealed in the lawsuit – which is just the latest in more than a dozen cases alleging Tesla’s door handle design led to the death of a driver or passenger.
“It’s on fire, it’s on fire. Help please … I am going to die … I’m dying.”
Around 1 a.m. on Oct. 29, 2025, Tremblett was driving a 2021 Tesla Model Y in Easton, Mass., when he veered across the southbound lane of Route 138 and crashed into a tree, according to the lawsuit.
The vehicle immediately burst into flames, but Tremblett – who survived the initial impact of the crash – was unable to exit because of Tesla’s “defective and unreasonably dangerous” door handles, the lawsuit alleged.
Police officers arrived at the scene quickly, but they were unable to suppress the fire or rescue Tremblett because the flames were so severe, according to the suit.
Officers reported four explosions from the blaze in the first 10 minutes after they arrived at the scene, adding that it took four hours to put out the inferno.
Tremblett’s remains were found in the back seat of the car, according to a police report.
“How could Tesla keep selling vehicles that they know trap people inside their cars after a crash? They could have fixed it, but they refused,” Jacquelyn Tremblett, a school guidance counselor and Tremblett’s mother, said in a statement.
“Now my son is dead after suffering unmercifully.”
Several Tesla vehicles are equipped with automatic exterior door handles, which lay flush with the door and electronically extend when a driver with the key is near the vehicle.
These models also have interior door handles that are electronic – but they can fail to extend in the instance of an electrical system failure, such as a fiery car crash, the suit notes.
There is a manual door release, but it is “not readily discernible, particularly to an occupant who needs to exit the vehicle quickly escaping a post-fire crash,” the lawsuit said.
“This young man died begging for help,” the family’s attorney, Andrew Nebenzahl, said in a statement.
“The question is, how many people have to die before Tesla puts its brilliant engineers on solving this problem immediately? It’s happening again and again today.”
Wednesday’s lawsuit includes the brutal details of at least 15 other people who have died in Tesla vehicles since 2016 after being trapped inside by the electric door handles.
US auto safety regulators have launched an investigation into nearly 200,000 Tesla vehicles over the safety of their electronic door handles.
China took it a step further this week, announcing a ban on all automated car door handles.
