Kami Fujimori

---

Crash victim’s
sister: ‘I hope
she’s OK in heaven’

Another teen is in
critical condition from
the two-car accident

By Jaymes K. Song and Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

Yong Sun Fujimori couldn't stop crying after hearing that her 16-year-old daughter was killed in a car accident yesterday.

Not since Kami Fujimori was in the eighth grade, receiving her academic presidential award, has she brought tears to her mother's eyes.

Kami, a junior at Kailua High School, was killed and three other girls were injured in a two-car crash on Kapaa Quarry Road.

"She had a soft heart," Yong Sun Fujimori said this morning. "She's very loving."

Police believe speed is a factor in the accident and have opened a negligent homicide investigation, as is routine in the event of a traffic fatality.

The crash occurred at about 1 p.m. yesterday when a Nissan Sentra carrying the four girls was heading north toward Mokapu Saddle Road.

The car apparently was traveling at well over the 25 mph limit when the driver lost control of the car and veered over the center line toward the west shoulder, investigators said.

They said the car apparently flipped up and over, its right rear tire striking a tree, which propelled the car back onto the roadway into the path of an oncoming Volvo station wagon.

Kami was sitting in the right rear of the car. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

"I hope she's OK in heaven, and I want her to know that we all love her," said Kami's sister, Sara Fujimori. Sara, 17, said she not only lost her younger sister, but her best friend.

Kami participated in track and paddling at Kailua High School, her family said.

A 16-year-old girl was rushed to Queen's Hospital in critical condition and later upgraded to serious condition. Two 17-year-old girls were taken to Castle Hospital and are in guarded condition.

The woman driving the other car was not injured.

The teen driver and her front- seat passenger apparently were wearing seat belts, traffic investigators said. It is unknown whether the girls in the back seat were wearing seat belts.

Kami "just loved paddling and doing what ordinary teen-agers do," said Yong Sun Fujimori. "I still don't believe she's gone. I just have to face the reality of life."

She urged other parents to be involved in their children's lives and know whom they are with.

"You never think it could happen to you, but it happened to me," she said.