A car crashed through the plate-glass windows of the post office in Hawaii Kai for the third time since2007and seriously injured three women Tuesday.
U.S. Postal Service authorities and Honolulu police are investigating the crash, which occurred shortly after 11 a.m. on the southeast side of the building.
Two of the three women were customers, and the third was the 78-year-old driver. None appeared to have life-threatening injuries, postal authorities said. The driver and the two customers, 15 and 23, who are sisters, were taken in serious condition to a medical trauma center. Police said the sisters suffered cuts and scratches.
"We’re certainly going to look into the cause of it," U.S. Postal Service spokesman Duke Gonzales said. "We want to make sure our customers and employees are taken care of."
Police said the driver was trying to reverse her car but mistakenly left it in drive, and it lurched forward through the windows. After the car plowed through the windows, a desk struck one sister, and the car struck the other in the stomach and threw her against post office boxes, authorities said. Both were bleeding but conscious, a postal official said.
The post office continued operating Tuesday.
The crash was the third within six years at the post office. Concrete posts were installed outside the northeast side of the building after a vehicle went through the plate-glass windows in 2007 and again in 2009. Tuesday’s crash was on the southeast side, where there are no such posts.
Postal workers said no customers were hurt in the 2007 and 2009 accidents and that the 2009 crash also involved an elderly driver.
Gonzales said there does appear to be similarity between the crash Tuesday and previous ones, but he doesn’t have statistics readily available about vehicular accidents at Hawaii post offices and the ages of the drivers.
Gonzales said many of the more than 100 post office buildings have features similar to those of the Hawaii Kai facility.
He said decisions to install concrete posts are done on a case-by-case basis depending on the building’s design.
Gonzales said officials will be taking a close look at this crash and whether conditions might apply to other buildings.
He said the designs vary and that some parking lots are not close to the building.
"Every post office is different," he said.
