A 14-year-old Kapa‘a boy died yesterday at Queen’s Medical Center after sustaining serious injuries in a Koloa car crash Thursday night. The fatal accident was one of three serious car crashes in the past two days. Also on Thursday night,
A 14-year-old Kapa‘a boy died yesterday at Queen’s Medical Center after sustaining serious injuries in a Koloa car crash Thursday night.
The fatal accident was one of three serious car crashes in the past two days.
Also on Thursday night, a Nukoli‘i one-car crash involving a utility pole closed a portion of Kuhio Highway for two hours. Yesterday, a Hanama‘ulu crash involving another utility pole caused power outages to nearly 1,400 Kaua‘i Utility Cooperative customers.
After Thursday’s Koloa accident, the 14-year-old driver was airlifted to Queen’s after being treated at Wilcox Hospital.
A 16-year-old Lihu‘e boy and 19-year-old California man also were injured in the Koloa crash and were taken to Wilcox for treatment. At press time, their condition was not known.
Mary Daubert, county spokeswoman, said preliminary details suggest the 14-year-old driver was eastbound on Koloa Road near the water tank around 10:05 p.m. when he lost control of the Honda sedan he was driving. The two other males were passengers in the car.
The 14-year-old then skidded onto the shoulder of the road and crashed into a tree, Daubert said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Also under investigation are the factors involved in Thursday’s Nukoli‘i accident. Officials said speed may have been a factor and confirmed that a 20-year-old man traveling north around 9:45 p.m. Thursday on Kuhio Highway lost control of the Chevy sedan he was driving. He then crashed into a utility pole near the Hilton Kaua‘i Beach Resort.
KIUC crews attended to the damaged pole while the highway was closed Thursday night. They had resumed troubleshooting the area yesterday when a car struck another utility pole in Hanama‘ulu.
Kaua‘i Utility Cooperative spokeswoman Shelly Paik said she got a call sometime between noon and 1 p.m. alerting her to the Hanama‘ulu power outage.
The 12:23 p.m. accident caused 1,396 meters to shut off, she said.
Brad Rockwell, KIUC production manager, said the 37-minute outage that ensued was in part because the Nukoli‘i utility pole crews were working on near the Aloha Beach Resort was part of the same circuit as the downed Hanama‘ulu pole.
KIUC crews had placed a limited holdoff on the power in Nukoli‘i to ensure they weren’t working in unsafe conditions, when the Hanama‘ulu crash caused the power outage.
“Normally, if a car hit a pole, we’d go through a reclosure cycle and would open the breaker, and if the fault was still there we’d wait maybe 20 more seconds,” he said.
But in this case, before reenergizing the circuit, they had to confirm the crews were clear of the line, and because they had crews in the area they sent employees to visually inspect the Hanama‘ulu site beforehand, he said.
• Amanda C. Gregg, assistant editor/staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or agregg@kauaipubco.com.
