Two people died, including a 7-year-old girl, when a suspected drunken driver slammed into a parked vehicle in Nanakuli on Saturday night.
According to the Honolulu Police Department’s Vehicular Homicide Division, a 27-year-old motorist was traveling northeast on Haleakala Avenue at a high rate of speed when he lost control of his vehicle and collided with a parked vehicle around 10:30 p.m. Saturday.
The crash killed 38-year-old Kelsey Palisbo and her 7-year-old daughter, Leah Hanakahi, and seriously injured 17-year-old Shaylee Hanakahi.
The father of the two girls, Stuart Hanakahi, 38, said Sunday that Palisbo had picked up Shaylee Hanakahi from work and was driving her to a family gathering. The teenager had just gotten out of the parked vehicle when the speeding car slammed into theirs.
On Sunday a makeshift roadside memorial of flowers, balloons and stuffed animals marked the spot of the fatal crash near the intersection of Haleakala Avenue and Mokiawa Street. A crowd of about 30 friends and family gathered under the shade of a nearby tree as the sun beat down.
Several people hugged Stuart Hanakahi as he thanked people for coming by.
Honolulu Emergency Medical Services said it was alerted to the crash at 10:48 p.m. Saturday. Upon arrival, EMS found the teenager with multiple injuries and performed lifesaving measures before transporting her to a nearby trauma facility. Palisbo and Leah Hanakahi were dead at the scene, EMS said.
Stuart Hanakahi was quarantining in Waikiki at the time of the tragedy. A welder, he was preparing to fly to the Republic of the Marshall Islands for a federal contract that required he quarantine in Hawaii before flying out and after arrival.
He said Palisbo planned to take Shaylee Hanakahi to Hilo to celebrate her birthday with her sister. The teenager remains in intensive care but is expected to recover, he said.
“It’s her birthday, and she is without her mom and her sister,” Stuart Hanakahi said.
“She’s strong, responsive, healing,” he said.
According to police, the 27-year-old driver of the other vehicle was arrested at the scene on suspicion of operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant along with two counts of first-degree negligent homicide. Police said speed and alcohol appear to be factors in the fatal crash but that it’s too early to tell whether drugs were involved. The investigation is continuing.
“I’m dumbfounded by, like, how you can speed up and down these roads knowing families live here,” Hanakahi said.
He said public awareness campaigns during holiday periods always warn people not to drink and drive, but more needs to be done to make people drive responsibly.
“Drinking and driving happen all year. No matter when, it always happens,” Hanakahi said. “This thing just has to stop.”
Saturday’s deaths are the 10th and 11th traffic fatalities on Oahu in 2022, compared with seven at the same time in 2021.
The Honolulu Police Department announced Friday that as part of ongoing efforts “to make Oahu roads safer,” officers will set up impaired driver checkpoints at unannounced times and locations across the island from Tuesday through April 30.
The period includes St. Patrick’s Day, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day and the Easter holiday weekend, although HPD stressed the checkpoints would not be limited to those days.
In 2021, police generated 2,132 criminal cases for impaired driving on Oahu, down from 2,539 in 2020, according to HPD. Six fatal and four critical collisions on Oahu roadways involved alcohol, compared with 17 fatal and seven critical alcohol- related crashes in 2020.
HPD also noted that 424 collisions islandwide in 2021 involved alcohol, compared with 360 in 2020.
