Wrong-way driver causes crash
A drunken driver going the wrong way caused a head-on collision on Nimitz Highway that killed a 29-year-old man and seriously injured three people, police said.
The crash happened just before 3 a.m. Sunday in the town-bound lanes of Nimitz Highway just before Sand Island Access Road.
Police said a 39-year-old Aiea man, driving a white Geo Metro, originally went the wrong way on Nimitz, traveling toward town in the Ewa-bound lanes.
The driver, whom police say was apparently drunk, then made a U-turn at Sand Island Access Road and drove the wrong way in the town-bound lanes, where his car collided with a white 2002 Toyota 4Runner in the passing lane.
Paramedics took a 29-year-old man, a passenger in the Geo, to the Queen’s Medical Center in critical condition. Police said he died at the hospital. The Geo driver and two people in the 4Runner — the 49-year-old male driver and his 40-year-old female passenger, both from Kapolei — were all reported in serious condition at Queen’s.
It’s not clear yet whether the people involved in the crash were wearing seat belts, police said.
Police closed all town-bound lanes of Nimitz Highway until about 7 a.m. while they investigated the crash. Nearly all westbound lanes were also closed for a while immediately after the crash.
The fatality is the 16th traffic death on Oahu so far this year, compared with 11 at the same time last year.
Hiker falls off ridge to his death
An Oahu man believed to be in his 40s died Sunday after he fell approximately 150 feet off a narrow ridge on an unofficial trail in Waimanalo.
According to Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. James Todd, the man was hiking with a group of 11 others from Hilltop Ranch to a point along the Koolau summit ridge via a dangerous pass known to local hikers as Bear’s Claw.
Todd said the trail is "definitely for very experienced hikers."
"You could be in a world of hurt," Todd said of hiking the trail. "I wouldn’t attempt it."
Seven of the hikers made it safely to the end. The man who died was with the remaining four others when he apparently grabbed ahold of a loose boulder that then dislodged from the ridge, causing him to fall down the nearly vertical cliff shortly after 12:30 p.m.
The man’s body became wedged into the mountainside, preventing it from falling hundreds of feet more, Todd said.
HFD rescue personnel reached the body shortly after 2 p.m. and found "no obvious signs of life." They removed the body and evacuated the remaining hikers — three men and a woman — from the ridge via helicopter.
No other injuries were reported.
