Nurses leave picket
line to aid victims
of car crash

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By Leila Fujimori
Star-Bulletin

Striking Molokai nurses left the picket line to help treat a family after a critical car crash.

"It wasn't a matter of should I go, we just went and helped out," said nurse Lorraine Pescaia, who was one of four nurses on the picket line when the family arrived yesterday.

The victims -- the parents, a girl about 7 years old, a girl about four years old and an infant -- were brought to the hospital shortly after the 9:30 a.m. accident, said Molokai Fire Capt. Stephen Legare.

They were in a Ford Bronco which had flipped over on its side about a mile north of Maunaloa, Legare said.

An air ambulance transported the two adults and the girl in critical condition to Queen's Medical Center. The boy remained at Molokai General for observation and the infant was released.

The hospital's six nurses went on strike last Friday over pay and staffing concerns.

Mary Bonifacio, director of nurses who is not on strike, said she wasn't surprised the striking nurses came to help.

"I would have expected they would have done just exactly what they did, knowing these people." she said.

"When something like this happens everybody pulls together, because we're a small community, " Pescaia said.