By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Four people were hurt when a car jumped a curb and
plowed through railings at Ala Moana Center yesterday.
Car smashes into
Ala Moana kiosk,
injuring four
Two people are in critical condition,
By Mary Adamski
including a sailor thrown 30 feet
Star-BulletinAn accident at Ala Moana Center that hurt four people may have been caused by a stuck throttle on a Mercedes Benz sedan, Honolulu police traffic investigators say.
No charges are pending against the 37-year-old woman driving the sedan in the 3:10 p.m. crash, said police Sgt. William Watkins.
The car leaped the curb on the mall between Liberty House and Shirokiya, uprooted a telephone kiosk, and twisted and flattened steel stairway railings before being crumpled against the Shirokiya wall.
Two of the injured people were making telephone calls when the speeding vehicle struck them.
Taken to Queen's Hospital were a 47-year-old Honolulu woman and a 24-year-old sailor. Both are in critical condition. A 38-year-old man is in guarded condition at Straub Hospital, and a 12-year-old girl was treated there and released last night.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Chris Vervaet, black shirt, holds Jody Smith where he
and his friend, Justin Scott, were making phone calls when
Scott was hit by the car.
Among the several witnesses was Navy sailor Chris Vervaet, who was standing near the telephone kiosk where his shipmate Justin Scott was making a call. Both men arrived in Honolulu Tuesday aboard the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis.Vervaet told police he saw the car coming and jumped to safety. He saw Scott get hit and thrown more than 30 feet, landing in the stairwell to the street level.
Jody Smith, another shipmate from the carrier, waited while Vervaet talked to investigators at the scene. Smith pointed to a baseball cap stuck in the car's passenger door, identifying it as belonging to the injured Scott.
Watkins said speed was involved. The driver reportedly stopped to wait for a car emerging from a parking space. Police are investigating what went wrong when she put the car into gear to move forward.
Neither the driver nor her 11-year-old daughter who was in the car was injured.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
The car came to a stop after smashing through railings.
