Police are investigating the death of a 15-year-old boy in a crash involving two pickup trucks in Lawai, Kauai. Four other teens were injured.
At about 12:40 a.m. Friday in Lawai, police responded to the crash on Koloa Road near Puakenikeni Street.
How the trucks interacted before the vehicles crashed on opposite sides of Koloa Road is under investigation, said police spokeswoman Sarah Blane.
A Nissan pickup truck was heading west when it struck a rock wall and utility pole along the shoulder, a news release from the Kauai Police Department said. The impact severed the pole and caused the truck to flip over, police said.
The driver, 18, of Kekaha, was transported to Wilcox Memorial Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. A 15-year-old passenger, also of Kekaha, was not injured.
A Toyota pickup truck police said was involved in the crash was also traveling west on Koloa Road when the driver, an 18-year-old woman, allegedly lost control of the vehicle and drove off a 30-foot cliff along the eastbound shoulder. The vehicle then crashed into a storage warehouse at Lawai Cannery Self Storage.
The front passenger, a 15-year-old boy of Makaweli, was ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene, police said. Another passenger, 16, of Kekaha, was transported to Wilcox with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police said a third passenger, 18, also of Kekaha, was transported to the hospital and medevaced to the Queen’s Medical Center. Her condition was unknown Friday.
The Toyota pickup driver, who suffered minor injures, was treated and released from Wilcox.
Police said drivers and passengers in both vehicles know one another.
Police arrested the Toyota driver on suspicion of first-degree negligent homicide and two counts of first-degree negligent injury. She was released pending investigation.
Speed and alcohol involving the Toyota appear to be factors in the crash, police said.
This is the seventh traffic-related fatality on Kauai this year compared with three in 2015.