Makakilo teen dies when hit by truck
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Central O'ahu Writer
MAKAKILO — In the harried rush of a school-day morning, Dena Ackerman didn't forget to tell her 15-year-old son, "Have a good day. I love you."
Minutes after eighth-grader Nathan Curry left his family's Palehua Hale townhouse on Makakilo Drive yesterday to catch the 7:15 a.m. school bus to Kapolei Middle School, his mother heard "the bang" from her kitchen.
Curry
"Even though it sounded like two cars, I knew ... ," said Ackerman, pausing to regain her composure.
She ran to the back door facing Makakilo Drive, Ackerman recalled, saying over and over, "Please, don't let it be Nathan."
"I saw him lying in the street, his legs ... ," she said, stopping herself once more.
Curry's school bus pickup point is on the Honolulu side of Makakilo Drive, and there is no crosswalk nearby. Witnesses told police the boy darted into the path of two pickup trucks heading uphill.
A 33-year-old 'Ewa Beach man, driving a 1994 Toyota pickup in the lane closest to the center line, braked in time to avoid hitting the boy, but a 2002 Toyota Tundra in the right lane, driven by a 37-year-old man, hit Curry at 7:12 a.m., said vehicular homicide investigator Sgt. William Baldwin.
Neither speed nor alcohol appear to be factors, Baldwin said.
Curry was pronounced dead at St. Francis Medical Center-West at 8:45 a.m.
Janet Williams, a data technician for the state's Med Quest medical insurance program, was headed down Makakilo Drive to drop off her daughter at school when she came upon the accident scene.
Williams said one of the boy's pants legs had been torn open all the way to the hip from the impact.
Nine of the 21 people killed in traffic incidents on O'ahu this year have been pedestrians. Last year, 24 of the 71 traffic victims were pedestrians. In 2003, 14 of the 81 people killed in traffic accidents were pedestrians. In 2002, the 68 traffic deaths included 26 pedestrians. In 2001, the 79 traffic deaths included 24 pedestrians. Source: Honolulu Police Department
"I was maybe the third person to reach the boy to try to help," she said. "I was calling out to him, telling him help was on the way. I kept trying to feel for a pulse, and kept watching for some movement in his eyes. They were open but he was just staring out into space."
Pedestrian deaths in recent years
Williams said she saw Ackerman, walking out of the condominium driveway.
"She was looking as if she was trying to make out what had happened, and as she got closer to where the boy was she began to call out, 'Nathan, Nathan, NATHAN!' The fireman held her back."
Ackerman accompanied her son in an ambulance to St. Francis-West, watching helplessly as paramedics and later emergency room personnel tried to save his life.
"There was no pulse," Ackerman said. "They fought and fought, trying to get a heartbeat. I told him to breathe, please breathe.
"There was a young man at the hospital doing chest compression. He ... had tears in his eyes. To see him cry for someone else's child said a lot about how hard he tried to save my son's life. I wanted to thank him, especially, and all the others who tried."
Before she and her husband left the hospital room, Ackerman said they told the boy how proud they were to have him as a son.
"He was my guardian angel, my friend, my world," Ackerman said. "I didn't know when I named him that Nathan meant 'gift from God.' I was his mother but we sort of grew up together. Nathan and I have been through a lot. He got me through some hard times in the first 11 years of his life."
Curry was quiet, a loving brother to his 2-year-old sister, Kathrin, and 9-year-old brother, Casey, who is in Germany.
"It can't be real," Ackerman said. "Parents are not supposed to bury their children. We had this silent pact that we would always be there for each other. It just doesn't seem right. I sure hope they put a crosswalk in now."
Maeda Timson, chairwoman of the Makakilo/Kapolei/Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board, said children jaywalking in the area where yesterday's fatal accident occurred have been a safety concern for years. A move to install traffic calming several years ago was opposed, in part because of loss of street parking.
The two nearest crosswalks are about 75 yards away from the accident scene, which is near a walkway down to Mauka Lani Elementary School and Mauka Lani Neighborhood Park.
"I don't know why the state puts a school bus stop where there are no crosswalks or traffic lights," Timson said. "There's also a lot of parked cars there and there shouldn't be parked cars on a main drag.
"This has been an issue for years. We've had a number of accidents, close calls and deaths on Makakilo Drive."
Blanche Fountain, manager of student transportation for the Department of Education, declined comment on the school bus stop concern raised by Timson until she has a chance to review the case.
Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.
