Search suspended for missing hiker

Fire rescuers have called off riverbank and dive searches for a hiker who went missing after being swept into the Wailuku River on Jan. 26.

Battalion Chief Darwin Okinaka said Sunday morning the county helicopter will fly over the river twice a day “for the next couple of days or so” in a search for the body of Kelly Mrowinski.

Mrowinski, a traveling nurse from Chicago who has been on the Big Island since January, was swept into the river by flash flood waters above Piihonua Falls while hiking with another individual.

The other hiker, a man, managed to make his way to the river bank and escape the dangerous current of the Wailuku, which means “waters of destruction” in Hawaiian.