Posted on: Monday, August 2, 2004

McCully crash results in fourth traffic death in three days

By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer

A 53-year-old man became the fourth O'ahu traffic fatality in three days when the passenger bus he was driving rear-ended another car before careening off the road and running into a utility pole and a wall, police said.

The accident happened at 11:05 p.m. Saturday on McCully Street, just south of Algaroba Street.

The bus was heading north on McCully in the center lane when it hit a Nissan Sentra in the same lane, pushing it into a line of cars stopped at the intersection, police said. The Sentra crossed the intersection and veered off to the right.

The 38-year-old male driver of the Sentra and a woman passenger, 28, were not hurt.

The bus went to the right also, but hit a utility pole and a hollow-tile wall, police said. Witnesses at the scene found the man unconscious and started to administer CPR. He died at The Queen's Medical Center.

Police said the accident and death seemed to result from a medical condition, but are awaiting the results of an autopsy.

It was O'ahu's 41st traffic fatality this year, compared with 46 last year, police said.

On Saturday, a 41-year-old man was struck and killed as he tried to walk across Kamehameha Highway at Helemano Plantation, police said. The man, who suffered serious head injuries and a broken leg, was flown to Queen's, where he died.

The accident happened about two miles west of Pa'ala'a Uka Pupukea Road at 64-1510 Kamehameha Highway. The pedestrian was hit by a white 2001 Honda Civic traveling west as he walked south across the rain-soaked highway, where there was no lighting or crosswalk, police said.

Neither the 30-year-old Hale'iwa man driving the Honda nor his 17-year-old passenger were injured. Police said the Honda was not speeding, and alcohol was not a factor.

On Friday, a woman riding a motorcycle and a man in a pickup were killed in separate traffic wrecks.

Police say speed and alcohol may have been factors in a hit-and-run collision on the H-1 Freeway extension Friday morning that killed the 38-year-old motorcyclist and seriously injured another woman, 28.

A man suspected of driving the pickup truck that struck the motorcycle and fled the scene has been jailed after confinement at Pali Momi Medical Center, police said.

The wreck occurred at about 4:15 a.m.

According to Sgt. William Baldwin of the Honolulu Police Traffic Division, the suspect, a 23-year-old Honolulu man, had just passed another vehicle when he rear-ended the motorcycle, hitting it just hard enough to throw both women off the bike. The suspect ran over the 38-year-old woman and fled, he said.

Two hours after the collision, police found the suspect's vehicle on Komo Mai Drive off Waimano Home Road and apprehended the man. He had head injuries and was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Police said yesterday the man was still in custody, pending charges.

At about 12:20 p.m. Friday, a 58-year-old Kane'ohe man died after his Ford pickup truck veered off Kamehameha Highway and struck a tree near the He'eia Kea pier.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Witnesses told police they saw the man slumped over the wheel of his truck before the crash. Police said speed may have been a factor and the incident is under investigation.

Reach Peter Boylan at 535-8110 or pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.