CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Registered nurse Suzanne Jambeau stood on top of the rubble left from an accident Friday night on Kamehameha Highway near Kualoa Ranch. Jambeau was at the scene when the accident happened and administered emergency medical attention to a 16-year-old boy who was ejected from the vehicle. He remains in critical condition.
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Teen critically injured in Kualoa crash
The 16-year-old driver is thrown from a car after losing control
A 16-year-old Hauula boy was critically injured Friday night when the car he was driving slammed into a wall and parked cars on the Kamehameha Highway makai of Kualoa Ranch, police said.
The boy was driving a 1994 red Volkswagen Golf northbound when he apparently lost control and skidded into the tile wall around the yard of an oceanfront home, Sgt. Alan Vegas of Honolulu Police Department's vehicular homicide section reported.
The Golf then spun around, struck another roadside wall, hit a 1988 white Ford van, lost its engine block and then struck a 2004 silver Honda Civic parked on the mauka side of the highway, Vegas recounted.
The 16-year-old driver was thrown from the car onto the highway, Vegas said. A passenger in the car, believed to be another 16-year-old Hauula boy, fled the scene of the accident, he said.
Two other parked cars, a 1993 white Toyota van and a 1997 blue Toyota Camry were damaged by flying debris, Vegas said. The driver was taken to the Queen's Medical Center in critical condition.
Suzanne Jambeau, a registered nurse who was visiting at the house where the wall was struck, described the boy as having "massive head injuries. He's never going to be the same."
About 11:30 p.m., Jambeau was helping friends Derrick and Judie Willis Lee clean their front yard for a party the next day.
"We heard the screeching of tires and a loud explosion," Jambeau said yesterday. "Immediately, Derrick said: 'Everybody duck!' We all ducked and covered. Some people were cut by pieces flying glass and hollow tile wall, she said.
"After the noise stopped, we saw parts of the car all over the road and the young man lying face down on the road," Jambeau said.
Jambeau directed others to help her properly turn the boy face up, checked his breathing and pulse and gave him several "rescue breaths," she said. "There was blood pouring out of mouth, and he did not seem to be breathing very well."
"I kept screaming at him: 'Breathe! My name is Suzanne. Breathe," she said. "I screamed out, 'Everybody pray for this dude, just pray for him.'"
A "really nice gal" riding a motorcycle who had been a medic in Iraq also stopped to help, Jambeau said.
Jambeau was marveling yesterday at how close she and her friends had come to being part of the accident: "Two minutes prior to this, we were loading stuff into that van. If it had happened two minutes sooner, we'd be dead."
Speed was an apparent factor in the accident, police said. The driver apparently had not been wearing a seat belt and the car had no airbags.
The accident, reported at 11:48 p.m., closed the highway in both directions until 2:16 a.m., when traffic was diverted through Kualoa Ranch property, police said. The highway was reopened at 5:35 a.m. yesterday.