Two intermediate school-age girls were injured when they were hit by a car this morning while crossing Queen Emma Street at Vineyard Street, witnesses said.
Bryan Cheplic, the city's Emergency Services spokesman, said the two girls in their early teens were taken to a local-area trauma center in serious condition. One of the girls was treated and released.

Workers in a nearby restaurant said they believe the girls are students at Central Intermediate School who left the campus just before 8 a.m. to buy juice or candy at a nearby store.
Witnesses said the girls were hit either in or just outside the crosswalk.
Kekoa Kruszona said he looked in the rearview mirror of his car just in time to see the two girls being dragged along on the hood of the car that hit them. He said one of the girls appeared to be much more injured than the other. She was laying face-down on the pavement after she slid off the car hood.
“She was just laying there convulsing as her friend was trying to comfort her,” Kruszona said. “The other girl seemed like she was just brushed by the car.”
Kruszona said police and a city ambulance were on the scene minutes later and loaded both of the girls into the ambulance.
Lannie Nguyen, co-owner of Skippy’s Vietnamese Food on Queen Emma Street, said she talked to the woman who was driving the car that hit the two girls.
“She’s Vietnamese and I’m Vietnamese so I try help her,” Nguyen said. “The lady tell me the two kids (were) holding hands running across the street and she didn’t see them. She keep saying she hope the children OK,” Nguyen said.
She said she has operated the restaurant with her husband for about five years.
“We see plenty car accidents here, but this the first one where kids got hurt,” Nguyen said.
She said the traffic in the morning is chaotic with cars trying to get into or out of the downtown area, delivery trucks making stops and children being dropped off or walking to various schools in the area.
Earlier, police were diverting traffic going mauka on Queen Emma Street. All lanes of Queen Emma are now open.