Two girls struck by SUV
• Accident brings call for safety
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
Two girls were in guarded condition last night after they were hit by a sports utility vehicle while crossing what one witness called a dangerous stretch of Punchbowl Street.
Scott Morifuji • The Honolulu Advertiser
The accident occurred shortly before 5 p.m. in the makai-bound lane of Punchbowl between Vineyard Boulevard and H-1 Freeway.
An emergency medical service worker interviews witnesses to an accident in front of Royal Elementary School yesterday afternoon that sent two girls to the hospital, where they were listed in guarded condition last night.
Police said the girls, 9 and 12, were crossing Punchbowl near Royal Elementary School when an Isuzu SUV hit them.
They were taken to The Queen's Medical Center in critical condition, but upgraded to guarded condition last night. Police said the girls were not in a crosswalk when they were hit.
The SUV driver said he had just gotten off the freeway and did not see the girls.
"It was busy over here," said the driver, who did not want to be identified. The man and his two female passengers were not injured.
Alan Piiohia works near the scene at the Jiffy Lube and he said he heard the accident.
"We heard this loud bang," Piiohia said. "At first we thought it was two cars, but when I went to go run across the street, I saw the two girls lying on the road, motionless."
He and other co-workers comforted the two girls until an ambulance arrived.
Piiohia said he was surprised the girls weren't injured more seriously. He thought "they were dead because that sound, I thought it was a car. But he hit those two girls. It sounded like a car accident, like full head-on."
Piiohia said children often run into the street in that area.
"It's not only during school hours because there's a basketball court in the back, so this is happening all day and mostly all night," he said.
