She and her husband, hurrying to the street, found hordes of teen-agers on the road, returning from a drinking party at the top of the seven-mile Kaloko Drive.

Some stood drinking beer next to a crashed car wrapped around a tree, doing nothing to help the 17-year-old girl trapped inside. Some of the teens were fighting in the road. Others simply sat down on the pavement, despite more cars speeding down the steep, winding road.

This outdoor drinking party happened in November, but similar events with numbers of youths increasing into the hundreds have become common in recent years, Kona police Capt. Dale Fergerstrom said.

In the 1960s, kids would gather on remote roads for drinking and drag races, Fergerstrom said.

But since then the numbers have shot up from a few dozen to as many as 300, he said.

"All of a sudden, it's boom," he said. And with the greater numbers has come more violence.

A week ago last weekend, police breaking up a huge party in Kaloko Business Park found cars in a circle with their lights shining on two young men fighting, he said.

Just north of Hilo two other such parties with hundreds of youths resulted in a traffic accident with three deaths in August and another with four deaths in February.

Fergerstrom said police are limited in responding.

Through the "coconut wireless," a party can be set with extremely short notice, he said.

The youths hold the events on different days of the week, sometimes in midweek, and at different sites in Kona such as the old airport or the industrial area, he said. As a result, police don't know when to put on extra forces to handle several hundred youth at once.

The youths also know a half-dozen police can arrest only a similar number of offenders.

"A couple of the kids say they they feel safe in numbers," Fergerstrom said.

At Kaloko, the 17-year-old girl survived the car crash, but has been hospitalized since then.

"She has suffered very serious brain injuries," said Kevin Seiter, attorney for the girl's mother, Zara Fujihara.

Seiter said a mechanical failure was the cause of the accident.

Sansone laid the problem of the unruly parties at parents' feet. Some parents come home at 3 a.m. when their children are coming home from the parties, she said.

Fergerstrom said that when police make arrests, parents often blame them for doing so instead of blaming their children for being out so late.

But Glennon Gingo at the Kona Family YMCA said most of the kids aren't bad. "I think there are a lot of 'wannabes.' A lot are really bright kids," he said.

Part of the problem is a lack of nighttime activities for Kona teens, he said.

"We have a nice (county) gym. It's very underutilized," he said.

A 9 p.m.-to-1 a.m. YMCA basketball program in Waimea, an hour north of Kona, has helped channel youthful energy there, he said.

"Quite a few I know would be out cruising if they weren't playing basketball," he said.

County Councilman Curtis Tyler from North Kona says youth he talks to believe adults aren't interested in them.

"We need to get across to youth that we really care about them," he said.

But a strong response for offenders, such as Singapore-style caning, is not too harsh, he said.

Fergerstrom said he is frustrated by the community's failure to follow up.

Following the deaths north of Hilo there was an outcry, he said.

Two weeks later, the matter was forgotten.