Authorities say the surviving passenger in Saturday’s fatal car accident is in stable condition, after having been medevaced to Queen’s Medical Center on O‘ahu that afternoon. The driver of the car, the surviving passenger’s husband, has been identified by authorities
Authorities say the surviving passenger in Saturday’s fatal car accident is in stable condition, after having been medevaced to Queen’s Medical Center on O‘ahu that afternoon.
The driver of the car, the surviving passenger’s husband, has been identified by authorities as 35-year-old Lihu‘e resident Troy Medina.
Medina died at the scene of the multi-vehicle crash in Wailua, authorities said.
The accident occurred around 3:14 p.m. near the Wailua Golf Course around mile marker 4 on Kuhio Highway.
Witnesses said several cars had swerved in the moments preceding the crash to avoid a tire that had broken off a southbound pick-up.
A northbound motorist struck the tire, lost control of the vehicle, crossed the centerline and struck Medina’s southbound pick-up; then a southbound sedan struck the northbound motorist, said Mary Daubert, county spokeswoman.
Police closed Kuhio Highway at 3:20 p.m. between South Leho Drive and Marine Camp Road as a result of the crash, and re-opened it at 7:40 p.m.
The four-hour closure caused severe traffic delays, possibly because motorists who weren’t aware of the closure remained on the road; neither FM nor AM radio stations were offering traffic updates.
Daubert said police dispatch notified the radio stations about the crash via e-mail, asking them to advise listeners to avoid the area. Daubert also said dispatch notified the radio via
e-mail when the road was reopened.
Some patrol officers were assigned to coordinate opening alternate routes — a privately-owned cane haul road the county has a contract to use in emergencies and a service road along the golf course — the first of which police had to screen for safety before diverting traffic.
The bypass was open to southbound motorists a little more than an hour after the accident, Daubert said, and an officer was stationed at its entrance just past the Aloha Beach Resort. Another officer was monitoring the end of the bypass, at Roberts Hawai‘i in Hanama‘ulu.
Shortly after, golf course employees opened their maintenance road along the edge of the golf course and allowed one-lane of northbound traffic to go from Marine Camp junction to the golf course entrance, she said.
Assistant Police Chief Roy Asher said officers are aware of alternate routes and that the county has memorandums of agreements with landowners in events of emergency.
Though motorists were likely frustrated by the traffic delay, Daubert said the diversion stemming from the four-car fatal accident was executed “relatively fast.”
