A 44-year-old city bus driver was seriously injured when his bus careened through a busy downtown intersection and into a concrete-and-stone wall at Kawaiaha‘o Church, barely missing two college choral singers.
"We’re just meant to be alive," said Windward Community College student Tony Vierra-Albao, 20, who was walking on the street and about to enter the church grounds. "Twenty or 30 seconds later, we would have gotten hit by the bus or the concrete debris. Some of the chunks were huge. It could have disabled me or killed me."
The accident occurred at the corner of Punchbowl and South King streets just before 5:30 p.m., one of two Monday afternoon crashes that snarled rush-hour traffic.
A large truck flipped onto its side on the H-1 freeway, cutting in half the number of westbound lanes in Aiea.
Downtown, firefighters using hydraulic tools worked to free the bus driver, whose legs were trapped by the dashboard. The front of the bus ended up on the church grounds, while the rest of it remained in the intersection.
The otherwise empty bus was heading makai on Punchbowl and was not in service at the time. The driver was supposed to have made a left turn and returned to the Alapai bus depot, said fire Capt. Terry Seelig.
Instead, the driver drove straight through the intersection.
Scores of college students were awaiting the start of the 6:30 p.m. choral festival concert on the church grounds.
WCC student Casey Kitano, 19, said he was at the street corner when he could heard the bus coming. He ran without turning around.
"I was pretty shaken, but I feel worse for the bus driver," he said. "It could have been a lot worse."
Brigham Young University-Hawaii student Dylan McMurtry, 24, said he was having lunch on the church steps when he heard what sounded like an explosion.
"He (the driver) didn’t put on the brakes and didn’t turn," he said, and just drove straight through the intersection.
MCMURTRY and others ran to the bus to see whether they could help, and found the driver with a gash on the side of his head and blood flowing down his neck.
"He kept trying to get out of the bus," McMurtry said. "We tried to keep him calm" and told him not to move.
BYU student Beau Kapeliela, 19, said he heard "a boom as loud as a bomb," saw the bus traveling 20 to 30 mph and saw one young man run from the bus.
The windshield of the bus was gone, and the driver’s-side window was shattered, he said.
Police shut down portions of Punchbowl and South King streets until the bus could be towed.
The other accident occurred on the H-1 when a semitruck spilled a load of asphalt after flipping onto its side in the westbound lanes near the Aiea Heights Road overpass.
The truck’s driver was taken to a hospital in serious condition, a city Emergency Medical Services spokesman said.
Rush-hour traffic heading toward Waianae and Wahiawa was backed up as asphalt had spread across several westbound lanes and left only three of six lanes open.
All lanes reopened at about 5:30 p.m., more than three hours after the crash.
