Kaua‘i Police Department officers have begun a criminal investigation into a two-car, head-on collision on Kaumuali‘i Highway in East Kaua‘i last week that left a 12-year-old female visitor dead and four others injured, including both drivers. The circumstances of the
Kaua‘i Police Department officers have begun a criminal investigation into a two-car, head-on collision on Kaumuali‘i Highway in East Kaua‘i last week that left a 12-year-old female visitor dead and four others injured, including both drivers.
The circumstances of the collision may result in the lodging of criminal charges, a police official said.
The girl was a passenger in a Chevrolet sedan that was traveling eastbound on the highway when the driver, Carol Glann, 42, of Oakland, Calif., crossed the centerline and struck a westbound vehicle driven by a Koloa woman, police said.
The 3:30 p.m. incident affected thousands of motorists, and slowed and halted traffic between East and South Kaua‘i for hours.
The traffic gridlock underscored longstanding complaints that Kaua‘i’s roads are inadequate to handle today’s traffic volume, and that some major thorough-fares could become impassable during a similar crisis or extreme emergency.
Wednesday afternoon’s collision occurred at the four-mile marker of the highway.
The eastbound car contained the 42-year-old woman driver and three passengers: the 12-year-old girl, her 15-year-old brother, and a 10-year-old girl, their cousin and Glann’s daughter.
The 15-year-old male youth suffered injuries, and underwent surgery, according to police.
An autopsy was done on the 12-year-old girl on Thursday. Her mother, Marie Johnson, is on the island, and is preparing to having her daughter’s body transported back to the Mainland, according to Mary Daubert, the county’s public information officer.
The 10-year-old female suffered serious injures in the crash, and also underwent surgery at Wilcox Memorial Hospital.
All of the occupants in the Chevrolet sedan are residents of Oakland, Calif.
The California woman and the Koloa woman reportedly suffered only minor injuries, and were treated at Wilcox Hospital and were released. The identity of the Kaua‘i woman was not released.
Lt. Mark Scribner, who heads the KPD Traffic Safety Unit, said last week that family members of the surviving children had arrived on Kaua‘i to give comfort to the crash victims and their families.
The accident created havoc for thousands of motorists who found themselves stuck in traffic for hours, both on the highway and on side roads leading to the highway.
Among those waiting in traffic, sometimes at a standstill, were tourists who had to catch plane flights off the island and back to the Mainland, and others who had to get back to a passenger cruise ship that was waiting to leave Nawiliwili Harbor.
Cruise-ship officials were able to delay departure to accommodate guests who were stuck in traffic, but that was likely not the case at Lihu‘e Airport.
“Between 3:30 and 4 (p.m.), traffic was locked up in both directions (of the highway),” Scribner said.
Some traffic relief came around 4 p.m., when a rancher allowed police officers to use his pasture to divert traffic mauka of the highway.
The pasture is located by the Kaua‘i Humane Society complex in Kipu, and north of the highway.
“The property belongs to Grove Farm (Company leaders), and it was subleased to a rancher,” Scribner said. “He was there, and the police asked him if they could use, and he said ‘OK.’”
The alternate, one-mile route emptied out onto the highway about 25 to 30 feet west of the crash site, Daubert said.
“The traffic (flow) was still slow because people who exited onto the highway could see the crash and were rubbernecking,” Scribner said.
Traffic on the highway between Lihu‘e and Maluhia Road, the turnoff to Koloa and Po‘ipu, can be heavy on any day, particularly during commute hours, Scribner said. “The traffic accident only compounded it,” he said.
A Kaua‘i County employee who asked not to be identified said it usually takes her five minutes to drive from the intersection of Kaumuali‘i Highway and Rice Street to roads by the Kukui Grove Center.
“Yesterday, it took me an hour,” the county employee said.
She said she was taken aback by the condition of the vehicles as she drove by them en route to South Kaua‘i.
“The blue Chevy sedan was like an accordion,” she said.
Scribner speculated traffic jams could have been alleviated to a greater extent if old cane-haul roads had been used to divert traffic.
Cane-haul roads are generally found on the mauka and makai side of the highway from the Kaua‘i Humane Society complex to makai parts of Maluhia Road and to Waita Reservoir in South Kaua‘i.
But the old cane roads couldn’t all be used, because the lands on which they are found, although they are still owned by leaders of Grove Farm Co., are now subleased to folks who have put up fences around their properties.
As result, not all parts of a one-time network of cane-haul roads can be used during emergencies, Scribner said.
“We surely would have gotten home earlier if they had used the cane-haul roads,” the county employee said.
- Lester Chang, staff writer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
