Elderly pedestrian killed by truck pulling out of drive
An elderly pedestrian who was struck by a pickup truck yesterday on a Dillingham Boulevard sidewalk died later at the Queen's Medical Center, police said.
Just before 11:30 a.m., a truck backing out of Aiea Recycling, 1811 Dillingham Blvd., hit the man in his 60s or 70s, police said. The driver of the white, two-door 2001 GMC Sierra pickup said he had made a wrong turn into Aiea Recycling's driveway and had wanted to enter Island Recycling Inc. next door. He was revers- ing out of the driveway against traffic just before the accident.
"I felt that bump. I thought I hit a curb -- I went over something. I didn't know it was a guy," said the driver, a 62-year-old Kalihi man who declined to give his name.
He was looking backward in the direction of oncoming traffic but did not see anyone behind him, he said.
He put the car in gear, and a man in front began yelling so he stopped, he said.
The truck came to rest in the southbound lane of Dillingham facing Diamond Head, a few feet from the sidewalk.
"I ran over his arm and his leg," said the driver. "If I saw him, I wouldn't have run him over."
The owner of Aiea Recycling saw the truck pull into his driveway. The owner, who declined to give his name, said he told the driver he could drive forward to Colburn Street, but the driver started to back out.
The owner turned for one moment, heard someone yell "stop," looked back and saw a man lying under the back of the truck.
The driver said he went around the back of his truck and saw the pedestrian's head just behind the rear tire. A black baseball cap lay under the rear bumper.
The pedestrian's black slippers and a plastic bag of grocery items lay on the roadway.
The distraught driver sat nearby.
Sgt. Daniel Kaholokula of the Honolulu Police Department's Traffic Division said the pedestrian, who was not carrying an ID, suffered injuries to his upper body and right arm.
Paramedics took him to Queen's in critical condition, where he later died. Police diverted eastbound traffic on Dillingham into one lane half a block east of Mokauea Street for at least two hours.
"You feel so bad," said the driver. "I drove around for 60 years. I never ran over anyone."