By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin
Nightmares haunt nurse Geri Gallagher.
She can't escape the memory of Christmas Eve 1991, at a spot on a seaside fishing trail in Waawaa, where she was led to Dana Ireland.
The young woman had been raped and battered, her hair so blood-soaked Gallagher wasn't sure if its natural color was blond or red.
With two men, Gallagher lifted her off rocks onto the trail and bandaged her wounds.
Then she could do nothing but wait.
"I felt horribly helpless. I was completely lost inside, dying inside," said Gallagher, 46, who now lives near Salt Lake City.
She waited. No help came.From the moment Ireland was hit by her attackers' car until the time an ambulance reached her, more than two hours passed.
After the attackers abandoned her, the lack of telephones in the area caused a major delay in getting help. Police and fire department medical personnel were busy with other cases, but their own errors also caused 34 minutes of delay.
"I thought a million thousand times about taking her down (to the hospital) in my car, but I was so concerned about paralyzing her," Gallagher says.
"I've had nightmares about it. None of us knew that it was going to take so long. It took an indescribably long time to get help down to her. If they had got help to her, she would have lived."
5:47 p.m.
Jerome Fagg was working at police central dispatching in Hilo when the call came in.
Hilo Police Dispatch Call
Click play button for Quicktime Sound:
"Hi. I was just coming along the Beach Road from Kahakai and there was a woman in a van ... and she came running out yelling 'Help, help, help.' So I stopped my car and she came running and asked me to go to the store and call the police because a woman had been raped there. She said she was in very bad shape," said Hazel Franklin, then known as Hazel Allan.
In a three-minute conversation with Fagg, Franklin said the woman, later identified as Ida Smith, "was just basically screaming bloody murder."
Franklin gave directions, but Fagg, who declined to be interviewed by the Star-Bulletin, didn't appear to know the area.
Fagg apparently passed the information to dispatcher Donald Brescia, who radioed for already busy officers to respond. Nobody called for an ambulance.
By the time Franklin called police at 5:47, Ireland had been lying by the roadside trail for almost an hour.
6 p.m.
Gallagher, who was then known by her married name, Geri Coleman, lived with her husband, Randy, on Sadilek Road, a rough, unpaved track cutting into a coastal patch of jungle 25 miles by road southeast of Hilo.At 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1991, an acquaintance named Brian came to their door to get Gallagher, a licensed practical nurse. He wore a Christmas hat with blinking lights, but his mood was not festive.
"There's a girl we think has been raped down in the jungle," Brian said. He drove Gallagher to the site a mile away.
Gallagher found the young woman on jagged rocks and broken naupaka bushes.
"The inside of her legs were bruised and bleeding. Not profusely, but noticeably," said Gallagher, "At that moment I knew she had been raped."
The skin on the woman's shoulders, elbows and arms was torn. Pebbles and gravel were imbedded in her flesh.
"She had an extremely horrible gash in the back of her head," said Gallagher."The bleeding was still active." A paramedic later noted that the woman's skull was visible.
Gallagher remembers treating the woman for shock, raising her feet and lowering her head.
Using a first-aid kit, Gallagher bandaged the wounds.
She asked the woman her name. "Iz-land," she seemed to say.
Gallagher asked who attacked her. But Ireland wasn't coherent.
"Please give me the keys so I can drive home," Ireland said.
Gallagher tried to keep her awake. Gallagher indicated the flashing lights on Brian's hat.
"Look at the guy's hat. Can you concentrate on that?" she said.
Gallagher's husband arrived. "They say help's on the way," he said.
6:07 p.m.
Another call came in to police dispatching at 6:07 p.m. This time, dispatcher Brescia picked it up.
Hilo Police Dispatch Call
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"Yeah, one of my friends just drove up to my house and said that on Kahakai Boulevard that on Beach Road, get some chick got raped and thrown off to the side of the road," the anonymous caller said. At 6:08, Brescia called for an ambulance.
Eighteen minutes had been lost since the end of Franklin's call.
In a deposition for a civil suit filed against the county by the Ireland family, Brescia said Fagg should have called for an ambulance "because he's the one that verified that there was someone hurt."
Police Major Charles Chai said it is not clear today what procedures were in effect then.
The nearest ambulance, normally nine miles away in Pahoa, had gone to Hilo Hospital, so the Fire Department sent the next closest ambulance, from Keaau, 18 miles away. From Pahoa, the Fire Department also sent a fire truck.
Every Big Island firefighter is trained as an emergency medical technician and every truck has bandages and oxygen, said Paul "Scotty" Paiva, the current head of the department's medical services.
But neither the fire truck nor the ambulance could find Ireland. Brescia had given bad directions.
Franklin told Fagg to send help "less than two miles" on Beach Road. Brescia told the fire personnel, "Turn right on Government Beach Road. Person should be right there."
In the deposition, Brescia said Fagg would normally give him information about the location on a form. He didn't remember if Fagg wrote it down that night.
Brescia died in 1994.
6:26 p.m.
The fire truck was the first to arrive at Beach Road. The rescuers were looking for a car parked near the injured woman."No vehicle at scene," they reported at 6:26 p.m.
Hawaiian Beaches resident Gerald Wright saw them driving around in circles, even looking in an abandoned car. "They were genuinely lost," he said.
The Keaau ambulance arrived. Then someone driving out of Beach Road told rescuers in the truck and ambulance they were two miles from their goal.
The fire personnel hesitated.
"I seriously doubt if E10 (the Pahoa fire truck) can go all the way in," they radioed.
Residents agree Beach Road that night was about the same as it is now, unpaved, often one lane wide and full of potholes that filled with water in a rain. But it can be driven slowly with almost any two-wheel-drive vehicle. Volunteer fire trucks and even delivery vans have been seen driving it.
Fire personnel on the scene hesitated longer.
"They're telling me they can't make it in," fire dispatcher Darryl Willis radioed to Brescia.
Brescia answered, "They got a police car back in there."
Brescia got off the radio and phoned Willis.
"Be advised the condition of this female involved in, is pretty serious," Brescia said. "Have you even dispatched somebody out?"
Finally personnel at the scene radioed, "M-5 (the ambulance) will try to go in." The truck never moved.
From the moment the truck arrived at Beach Road until the ambulance got moving, 16 minutes was lost.
The ambulance reached Ireland at 6:50 p.m., exactly an hour after Franklin's call ended.
5:47 p.m.: Hazel Franklin, then known as Hazel Allan, called police to report that a woman had been raped and was "in very bad shape." Franklin told the dispatcher that officers should "make a right on Government Beach Road. Then keep going less than two miles." The response to
the tragedy6:08 p.m.: Police dispatcher Don Brescia called for an ambulance, telling Fire Department rescue workers the woman could be found "right after you get on Government Beach Road."
6:09 p.m.: An ambulance was sent from Keeau, and a fire truck was sent from Pahoa.
6:26 p.m.: The firetruck arrived at Government Beach Road, but couldn't find Dana Ireland.
6:35 p.m.: The ambulance arrived at Government Beach Road. A passing motorist told the ambulance crew that the injured woman was two miles away, but they waited.
6:36 p.m.: Fire rescue workers said their truck probably wouldn't make it down the rough road.
6:42 p.m.: After 16 minutes, the ambulance headed down Government Beach Road.
6:50 p.m.: The ambulance arrived at the fishermen's trail, where Dana was left.
7:13 p.m.: The ambulance headed for Hilo Hospital with Ireland inside.
7:56 p.m.: The ambulance arrived at Hilo Hospital.
12:25 a.m.: Christmas Day: Ireland was pronounced dead.
6:50 p.m.
The wait had left Gallagher in a state of shock. But when she saw paramedics carrying a stretcher down the trail, her professional training took over.She showed paramedics Ireland's injuries and helped them assess her.
They wrapped and braced her neck, a process that may have taken a full 10 minutes because it had to be done carefully to prevent paralysis, she said.
Finally they got Ireland into the ambulance and on the way to the hospital.
They had been at the scene 23 minutes, not an excessive amount of time, Gallagher said.
In the ambulance, paramedic Johnson Kahili was reporting by radio to Dr. Samuel Gingrich at Hilo Hospital.
Kahili couldn't feel any pulse in Ireland's extremities. Her heartbeat was fast, 140 to 150 per minute, he reported.
In contrast to Gallagher noting head bleeding, Kahili reported, "There's no real active bleeding at this point from the head wound. ... It's kind of a dilemma for me right now to figure out where she lost all the blood."
Gingrich responded, "Keep pushing the fluid until you can get some kind of peripheral pulse."
7 p.m.
John and Louise Ireland had been looking for their daughter, whose crumpled bicycle had been found in Vacationland after 5 p.m. They knew an injured woman had been found five miles away.But they did not know the woman was Dana."We thought somebody hit her and took her to the hospital," Louise said.
"So John said, 'You go on down (to the hospital). I'll stay back here in case something comes up.' It was just an accident; that's what I thought," Louise said.
Louise, her older daughter, Sandra, and Sandra's boyfriend, Jim Ingham, arrived at the hospital about 7 p.m. The rescue personnel were still at the fishing trail.
8 p.m.
The ambulance reached the hospital about 8 p.m., more than three hours after Ireland had been attacked.Ingham saw Ireland being brought in on the other side of the emergency room. "Go, Jim, go," Louise said. He ran to Ireland and said, "Dana we are with you."
Gallagher, who had followed the ambulance, came in and found Louise and Sandra in tears.
"Where's our Dana?" Gallagher remembers them saying.
"I tried to put my arms around them and comfort them," Gallagher said. She gave them her phone number, then left.
"I felt it was family time. I was in shock, too. I went home and had a couple of drinks."
Ireland went into surgery. Then a doctor came out.
"Is this life-threatening?" Louise asked, and the doctor answered yes.
Louise called her husband in Vacationland. "John, you better come down here. Dana is not going to make it."
Ireland's boyfriend, Mark Evans, was at the hospital with a second young man, Louise said.
The second one went in to see Dana, came out, and said, "You don't want to see her," Louise said.
"Maybe I'm glad I didn't see her," she said.
John got to the hospital about 10:30 p.m.
Time of death
About midnight a doctor came out and told them their daughter had died.The death certificate put the time of death at 12:25 a.m.
The cause of death was given as loss of blood due to "extensive traumatic injuries of head, pelvis, and abdomen" caused by a "motor vehicle accident."
The Irelands went home, then heard the radio the next morning.
"I thought it was a hit and run," John said. He didn't know that it was a murder until the radio report. "The police did not tell us."
He had asked a police lieutenant if the attack was deliberate. "You're listening to rumors," the lieutenant told him.
On Dec. 28, a hearse brought Ireland to the mortuary.
"She was all wrapped up," Louise said. "They had brought her over there to be cremated. When I saw her, it was just like she was asleep. You could see her whole body. I'm glad I saw her that way."
Finger-pointing, criticism
By Rod Thompson
followed the failed rescue
Star-BulletinPublic criticism of rescue delays mounted within days of Dana Ireland's death.
Eighteen minutes was wasted between the time Hazel Franklin's call to police ended and the time a Fire Department ambulance was notified of the emergency.
When fire rescue personnel were called, a police dispatcher gave bad directions.
When rescuers found the location, they were reluctant to drive their vehicles down the rough road. They wasted 16 minutes.
Deputy Police Chief Francis DeMorales said Franklin's call might not have been clear enough for dispatcher Jerome Fagg to know an ambulance was needed. However, Franklin had used the words "rape," "bloody murder" and "very bad shape."
The dispatchers had no maps, Brescia said.
A 911 emergency phone system, which would have tied police emergency calls to the Fire Department, did not begin until 8-1/2 months later.
Source: Star-Bulletin files; interviews;
Donald Brescia's deposition in Ireland family's
civil suit against county
Courtesy of John and Louise Ireland
3-year-old Dana on the patio of the
Irelands' home in Springfield, Va.
Tuesday, June 8
Wednesday, June 9
Thursday, June 10
No Frames: Tuesday, June 8 | Wednesday, June 9 | Thursday, June 10
