HONAUNAU — Ten-year-old Ulu Kaaloa waved to to her neighbor, Kuna Camacho, as she walked home from Honaunau Elementary School Wednesday afternoon — just as she always does. ADVERTISING HONAUNAU — Ten-year-old Ulu Kaaloa waved to to her neighbor, Kuna
HONAUNAU — Ten-year-old Ulu Kaaloa waved to to her neighbor, Kuna Camacho, as she walked home from Honaunau Elementary School Wednesday afternoon — just as she always does.
Only seconds after Ulu disappeared from sight, Camacho heard squealing tires, followed by a sickening thud.
“All of the sudden, we just heard this screech, a boom and another screech,” Camacho said, adding her mauka neighbor several hundred feet up from the road heard the crash, as well. “It sounded like a car hit another car. That’s how loud the impact was.”
Ulu was heading north on Highway 11, crossing from the mauka side of the roadway to the makai side, when she was struck Wednesday a little after 1 p.m. by a man in a vehicle heading south.
School let out early that afternoon, and she was on her way to her family’s restaurant, Kaaloa’s Super J’s. She was only steps from the front door when the truck slammed into her.
The posted speed limit in the area ranges between 35 to 45 mph.
“It kind of sounded like something dragged, so we don’t know if it was his bumper that flew or if he dragged her,” Camacho said, struggling to get the words out. “If you look at where his skid mark is to where her body was, it’s pretty far.”
Camacho, her family, and her neighbors weren’t the only ones to hear the horror on Highway 11. Ulu’s family heard it as well, including her aunt, Jevon Matsuyama.
“I heard him hit her,” Matsuyama said softly, through tears. “Then, the brakes.”
She added that two things happen every school day in front of the restaurant: Ulu walks home from Honaunau, and vehicles zip by at dangerous speeds. On Wednesday, they combined to create a recipe for disaster.
“(The driver) was going pretty fast, and people normally do here,” Matsuyama said. “We’ve tried to put signs up and tried to tell people to go slow, but it’s a long stretch. People fly it. It’s common.”
Responding to the crash, Camacho and her family ran into the road, where they saw Ulu laying in the street. One of her purple tennis shoes laid on the mauka shoulder of the highway, several dozen feet north from where the young girl ended up.
“We ran over to help and stopped traffic,” Camacho said. “All we could hear were her mom and auntie screaming.”
Matsuyama said Julie Kaaloa, her sister and Ulu’s mother, ran into the street and held her daughter in her arms until an ambulance arrived.
Julie and Janice Kaaloa, Ulu’s grandmother, accompanied Ulu to the hospital, where she remained Wednesday afternoon.
Judy Donovan, regional director of marketing at Kona Community Hospital, said she could not provide any information on Ulu’s condition.
More than an hour after the incident, Matsuyama said she heard from family at the hospital that Ulu retained a heartbeat. The next step for doctors was to measure any brain trauma she may have suffered.
Police at the scene did not release any information on the victim or the driver, but were observed inspecting the front of a tan, older-looking Jeep truck with Hawaii plates at the scene. On Thursday morning, police confirmed Kaaloa had died as a result of injuries suffered in the crash. Click here to read the updated story.
Police were also observed interviewing a man behind the truck who later voluntarily entered a police cruiser that drove away. He was not in handcuffs.
Highway 11 was closed for several hours following the crash, but was re-opened at approximately 6 p.m.
