Fatal crash paralyzes H-1

By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

A Honolulu woman is dead, her husband and mother are hospitalized and an 18-year-old former prep athlete is under arrest on charges of negligent homicide in a traffic accident that brought H-1 eastbound traffic to a standstill for more than eight hours yesterday.

Drivers were at a standstill on the H-1 Freeway eastbound after an accident near the 6th Avenue off-ramp, and the investigation that followed, backed up traffic today. A separate fender-bender near the Punchbowl Street off-ramp, which was closed due to construction, compounded the problem Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Tudisco was booked yesterday afternoon.

Police said he was speeding in his black 1999 Honda Prelude eastbound on H-1 when he lost control near the Sixth Avenue off-ramp, bounced off the median and swerved into a 1994 Aerostar van, propelling it into a guardrail.

All three occupants of the van were taken to the Queen's Medical Center.

Elizabeth Kekoa, a 58-year old employee of Holy Trinity School, died shortly after 5 a.m.

Her 79-year-old mother, a backseat passenger, was in critical condition yesterday afternoon. Kekoa's 68-year-old husband, Wally, the driver of the Aerostar, was in fair condition.

Elizabeth Kekoa was the third- and fourth-grade religion teacher at Holy Trinity School and director of religious education at Holy Trinity parish, said Monica Des Jarlais, Holy Trinity principal.

She was just as likely to be found answering phones at the parish and assisting in Holy Communion during Mass, the principal said.

"She was one of those people who worked until 10 or 11 at night at the parish," Des Jarlais said. "I was talking to Father Hal (Weidner) tonight and he was saying she did the work of five people."

Des Jarlais said Kekoa would have been headed toward Holy Trinity yesterday morning when she was killed, to prepare for 7 a.m. Mass.

Des Jarlais said she called the teachers at Holy Trinity and the parents of the third- and fourth-graders from Kekoa's class to tell them of the death.

The school will hold a prayer service honoring Kekoa this morning, she said.

Rodolf Leong, a longtime Holy Trinity parishioner, said all of the parish will miss Kekoa.

"She was a very charming person, very open. You could talk to her and she always listened," Leong said. "We are all going to miss her very much."

At Saint Louis School, staffers will be adjusting to the news of Tudisco's arrest.

Tudisco was an Interscholastic League of Honolulu all-star catcher last season.

His former coach, Dean Sato, said the arrest came as a surprise.

"He's a very good kid," Sato said yesterday. "He just does everything right: he does his schoolwork, he's early for classes, he's early for practice and he's a good leader. It came as a shock."

Traffic detectives worked throughout the morning yesterday at the site of the accident. As is the department procedure in cases involving fatalities or critical investigations, the police kept the affected lanes closed throughout the investigation.

That meant all eastbound lanes of H-1 were closed yesterday for an investigation that took more than eight hours.

A few lanes were opened by 1 p.m. The highway was back to normal by 2 p.m.

Drivers, whose options for entering and exiting H-1 had already been limited by the state transportation department's closings of the Punahou off-ramp and the Pi'ikoi on-ramp, were directed off H-1's eastbound lanes and onto King Street.

Some of the drivers, several of whom picked up their cell phones and called the newspaper, found the situation frustrating.

Christine Brown, who moved back to Hawai'i from San Diego two years ago and was stuck in traffic for 45 minutes yesterday, was appalled to discover Hawai'i routinely shut down its major thoroughfares for hours at a time.

"I don't understand this," she said. "It's a safety hazard. What if there is a medical emergency? You know it is just a matter of time before something terrible happens."

On the Mainland, she said, major highways are only shut down for events such as 60-car pile ups during ice storms.

"I think legislation should be passed outlawing this medieval practice," she said.

Fire Capt. Richard Soo said fire stations are spread out on the island in such a way that crews are usually able to avoid the highways in most cases, except when the highway is the destination.

But sometimes the highway looks like the quickest route.

Yesterday morning, when rescue crews in Honolulu set out to help a paraglider stranded on the cliffs above Makapu'u, some of the crews, knowing the state would be working on Punahou and Pi'ikoi, avoided the highway altogether and, red lights flashing and siren blaring, traveled through town, past Waikiki and around Diamond Head on the way to the beach.

Another firefighter, driving a truck that stands by at rescue sites in the event that Air 1, the department's search and rescue helicopter, needs to refuel, decided he could take the highway as long as he picked it up east of the state's projects. He ended up among the drivers stopped by the accident.

Using lights and sirens, the firefighter made it as far as the police officers who were directing traffic, Soo said. The officers directed him off on to King Street with everyone else.

Fortunately, Soo said, firefighters were able to complete the rescue despite the truck's delay.