Driver leaves dying passenger, flees stolen car at crash site
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
A passenger died yesterday after a stolen car veered across Waimano Home Road and crashed into the carport of a Momilani home.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
The crash at 895 Ho'omoana St. was reported to police at 4:04 a.m. yesterday. The man, who was found slumped over in the front passenger seat of a white Acura, died at Kapi'olani Medical Center at Pali Momi at 5:07 a.m., said police vehicular homicide investigator Claire Lum Lee.
The passenger in the white Acura that crashed through a carport and into the pickup truck on Ho'omoana Street early yesterday died at Kapi'olani Medical Center at Pali Momi shortly after the crash. The driver fled.
The driver fled the scene. The Acura had been reported stolen in Mililani on March 2, said Lum Lee.
Homeowner Francis Ching, 43, awoke to the familiar sound of a speeding vehicle on Waimano Home Road, seconds before the Acura plowed into his carport at about 4 a.m.
"I ran out of my room and see this guy climbing out of the (driver's side) window," Ching said. "I told him, 'Stop, wait,' and he said, 'My friend was driving and he's hurt.'"
When Ching's attention shifted to the passenger, the man slipped out of the carport. Police have opened a failure-to-render-aid and second-degree negligent homicide investigation into the crash.
The injured man moved but was unresponsive, Ching said. "The firefighters came and got him out."
The driver was speeding makai-bound when he lost control of the car, which severed a traffic-signal pole in front of Ching's corner-lot residence before crashing into the carport and the side of a parked orange pickup truck that Ching's brother had given him last month.
A second car parked in the garage also was damaged.
"If it wasn't for the truck being there, the guy would have hit my other car, and guaranteed he would have ended up in my house," Ching said.
He is thankful no one was injured in the house where he has lived with his girlfriend and parents for two years. The carport is near his invalid mother's bedroom. "She was in bed and wouldn't be able to move," Ching said.
"This happens all the time, practically every night," he said of the accelerating-engine sound of vehicles speeding on Waimano Home Road. "When I hear it, I wake up automatically. I always hope I don't hear the sound of a crash at the end.
"But this time, the speeding sounded close ... and I heard the loud crash," Ching added.
It was O'ahu's 17th traffic fatality of the year, the same number that died by this date last year.
Police yesterday were looking for the driver, who was last seen walking mauka on Waimano Home Road.
He is described as being between 5 feet 10 and 6 feet, and 160 pounds. He was wearing a white T-shirt and gray pants.
Calls are being taken directly by officer Tyrone Bush, the Vehicular Homicide Section at 529-3499 or anonymous calls to CrimeStoppers at 955-8300.
Police also were investigating a head-on collision yesterday on Farrington Highway in Ma'ili that injured three people, none critically, and an alcohol-related crash on Kapi'olani Boulevard in which a car slammed into a surfboard shop.
Two of the three people injured in the head-on collision went to The Queen's Medical Center; the other was taken to St. Francis Medical Center-West.
The collision occurred between Ka'ukama Road and Ho'okele Street at 5:58 a.m.
In another crash at about 3:30 a.m. yesterday, a car slammed into Clips surfboard shop at 1221 Kapi'olani Blvd.
No one was injured, but store manager Makoto Kambara said 20 surfboards, which retail for $500 each, were damaged.
Police arrested several people in the car and recovered evidence of beer at the crash scene.
Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.
