A Kaua‘i man was transported in critical condition to Queen’s Medical Center on O‘ahu following a headon automobile collision at milemarker 1 on Maluhia Road in Koloa Thursday afternoon, Kaua‘i police said. The accident, reported at 4:25 p.m., slowed southbound
A Kaua‘i man was transported in critical condition to Queen’s Medical Center on O‘ahu following a headon automobile collision at milemarker 1 on Maluhia Road in Koloa Thursday afternoon, Kaua‘i police said.
The accident, reported at 4:25 p.m., slowed southbound and westbound traffic from Lihu‘e to Kalaheo on Kaumuali‘i Highway for least three hours after the accident, some witnesses told The Garden Island.
The man, whose identity was not released, was driving a Jeep Cherokee vehicle southbound on the road to Koloa town when it apparently crossed the centerline and struck a dump truck traveling in a northerly direction, police officials said.
Following the collision, the operator of the jeep was transported to Wilcox Hospital and was then transported, apparently by aircraft, to the O‘ahu hospital for further treatment. The types of injuries he sustained were not released.
The driver of the dump truck was not injured. The identity of the driver was not released. The cause of the accident is being investigated.
Kaua‘i police patrol cars blocked the northern entrance to Maluhia Road as investigators began a probe of the accident scene.
Motorists leaving Po‘ipu and Koloa were reportedly rerouted along O‘mao Road.
In a separate incident around noon on Friday, three fire rescue specialists from the Lihu‘e fire station rescued a 31year female visitor from Palo Alto, Ca. from a point on the Kalalau Trail by Hanakoa Valley.
John Blalock, an acting fire captain at the Lihu‘e fire station, said the woman had hiked to the eightmile marker of the trail with her husband when she reported she could advance no farther due to rainy conditions and mud on the trail.
“It has been raining on and off up there,” Blalock said.
Another hiker wanting to help contacted Tarey Low, who heads the law enforcement division of the state Department of Land and Natural Sources office on Kaua‘i, Blalock said.
Low called the Kaua‘i County dispatch office, which in turn contacted the Kaua‘i Fire Department. An AirOne helicopter, with a pilot,
Blalock and fire rescue specialists Alan Lizama and Frank Subee, launched from a landing pad at the Kukui Grove Shopping Center around 12:45 p.m. The helicopter landed at a clearing in Hanakoa Valley, and the rescue workers brought the woman aboard the aircraft, which later landed at the Princeville Airport.
The woman was not injured, but as a safety procedure, medical personnel checked out her condition, Blalock said. Blalock said the woman’s husband was apparently not injured, and hiked out of the Kalalau coastline on his own. The identities of the couple, who had been camping in the Hanakoa area, were not released.
Lester Chang, staff writer, can be reached at 2453681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net.
