VANCOUVER -- A bizarre scene unfolded in a quiet Richmond neighbourhood Thursday morning.

A white work van with a rear door wide open was zooming down neighbourhood streets and doing laps, according to neighbours.

“I heard more neighbours yelling and I realized that something was really, really wrong,” said Alex Anees, who witnessed some of the incident.

In a video shared on social media, a man outside of the vehicle on the street is seen grabbing the hood of the van from the side in an attempt to stop the driver from escaping. Residents say he is the owner of the vehicle.

The van crashes into a flatbed truck and then reverses quickly and gets stuck in a steep ditch.

“It was like an action movie seeing all this happen right in front of you,” Anees said.

Before the commotion was caught on camera, Frank Persak said the owner of the vehicle had made another attempt at trying to stop the van from getting away.

“He was at our neighbours’ across the street and those neighbours, and he were pulling trash cans across the road, and we didn’t know why,” Persak said.

He said there are only two entrances in and out of the neighbourhood and because of construction, there is now only one option.

“I guess (the driver who’d taken the van) felt trapped and circled around a few times. Why didn't he try to escape through a garbage can barricade? I have no idea,” he said.

After the van gets stuck in the ditch, the vehicle’s owner is seen taking things into his own hands. He opens a side door of the van, grabs a wood plank from inside his vehicle, and then uses it to push and prod the driver – whose door is now open – out of the driver’s seat and onto the ground.

Once out of the vehicle, the driver is seen in the ground in a fetal-like position, yelling and crying.

Richmond RCMP confirm officers attended the 8000 block of Spires Gate, responding to a call for an alleged auto theft.

In an update Saturday, Richmond RCMP said a 48-year-old Vancouver man was arrested and taken to hospital with undisclosed injuries at the time of the incident.

They said he has been released from police custody.

The investigation continues and no charges have been laid.