An 18-year-old woman was in critical condition Tuesday after she and several other young people were intentionally struck by a driver who then fled the scene in Ewa Beach, witnesses said.

Police were still searching for the suspect Tuesday night and opened a second-degree attempted murder investigation.

Police said the incident happened after an argument involving a large group of people on Fort Weaver Road at about 3 a.m. Tuesday. An Emergency Medical Services crew treated and took the woman in critical condition to a hospital. A 17-year-old boy was also taken to the hospital, in stable condition, but was later released, police said.

Witnesses said the argument broke out among a group of young people who had gathered in the middle of Fort Weaver Road near Kihala Street. The car was stopped next to the group but then sped away, came back and sped away again, hitting people as it went.

“Scary,” said Noelani Lopez, who was looking out her bedroom window because she heard the argument. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

She said she saw a light-colored sedan accelerate away from the crowd of about two dozen teens in the road, toward the H-1 freeway, hit two people down the road, then reverse and head back toward the group. The driver was swerving to intentionally strike pedestrians as they tried to scatter, and hit the woman, who was tossed into the air by the impact, Lopez said. She estimated about 10 people were hit by the driver, many knocked to the side, but most were not seriously hurt.

The driver then turned around again and fled toward H-1, she said.

Lopez’s daughter, Nohea- lani Castellano, said her father went to help and found the woman on the ground still conscious and talking, saying that she couldn’t feel anything, was tired and wanted to sleep.

Castellano said the woman graduated from Campbell High School last year, and the group had apparently been at a party somewhere in the Barbers Point area, then ended up at a house nearby.

Danny Rivera, who also witnessed the crash, said, “I seen kids flying. It was horrible. It was traumatic. I never seen anything like that.”

He said he heard the car engine revving loudly as the driver accelerated during each of the three passes he made. Rivera said that as the car fled, he saw it had a shattered windshield and a dented driver’s-side door.

Rivera said he brought a towel to the woman after she was hit and found her boyfriend holding her as she lay on the ground. He said a nurse told the boyfriend, who was not the male taken to the hospital, not to move her, and Rivera placed the towel behind the woman’s neck on the street.