Driver allegedly strolls off after woman is crushed
Rescue workers take nearly two hours to lift the vehicle and reach the victim’s body in the Waipahu incident.
Eyewitness Shad L. Manner and his son, Jaymen, conferred with a police investigator at the scene of the accident.
Firefighters had to lift a Ford Taurus to extricate the body of a 68-year-old woman who was killed at a bus stop on Farrington Highway just west of Paiwa Street in Waipahu. The car crashed into the bus stop, knocking down one end of the bus shelter and pinning the woman under the car’s front end.
A woman waiting at a Waipahu bus stop was crushed and killed by a 2002 Ford Taurus that jumped the curb at Farrington Highway yesterday morning and threw another woman into the air as she, too, waited for TheBus.
The 41-year-old, unidentified male driver and his 40-year-old female passenger, both of Waipahu, were uninjured and allegedly left the scene. They were later arrested for investigation of failing to render aid.
It took Honolulu firefighters nearly two hours to stabilize the battered bus shelter and raise the Taurus off of the body of the 68-year-old Waipahu woman.
"The vehicle was left there, but the driver and the passenger were stopped walking down Farrington Highway away from the scene," said Maj. Thomas Nitta, head of the Honolulu Police Department’s Traffic Division.
The two women were the only people inside the shelter when the crash occurred in the westbound direction of Farrington Highway, 93 feet west of Paiwa Street near Waipahu High School, police said.
Traffic investigators suspected alcohol may have been a factor in the 8:28 a.m. crash and were investigating whether excessive speed may also have been a factor.
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The driver also was arrested for investigation of a felony accident involving death or serious bodily injury, and on suspicion of an accident involving bodily injury.
The 67-year-old Waipahu woman who was hurt in the crash was taken to Hawaii Medical Center West with minor injuries.
An open, red umbrella that one of the women apparently had been carrying came to rest upside down on top of the Taurus.
Shad L. Manner, 38, of Waianae was driving east on Farrington Highway toward Pearl City when he saw the crash on the other side of the road and heard the impact through his rolled-up windows.
"I seen the car jump the sidewalk and hit the bus stop," Manner said. "It looked like he went straight into it. Two women were in the shelter, and one was standing when I heard the crash. One was pinned under, and the other lady flew eight to 10 feet."
Manner then saw the driver emerge from the wreckage, stare at the front of the Taurus on top of the woman and grab his head. A woman then squeezed her way out of the passenger side.
"They both hugged each other and started walking," Manner said.
Bibiana Ming, 83, normally would have been waiting at the shelter at about 8:30 a.m. yesterday. But a friend instead picked her up to attend services at Leeward Community Church in Pearl City.
As firefighters worked to stabilize the wreckage and retrieve the dead woman’s body yesterday, Ming looked at the wreckage and said, "I always ride TheBus but not today. That could have been me. I thank God."
It was the 38th traffic fatality of the year in Honolulu, compared with 40 at the same time last year. The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office did not release the woman’s identity yesterday.
