The driver of one of two vehicles that rolled Sunday evening on Mauna Kea Access Road was pronounced dead at Hilo Medical Center this morning. ADVERTISING The driver of one of two vehicles that rolled Sunday evening on Mauna Kea
The driver of one of two vehicles that rolled Sunday evening on Mauna Kea Access Road was pronounced dead at Hilo Medical Center this morning.
The woman, who is unidentified, was driving a 2001 Nissan sport-utility vehicle that crashed about 1.2 miles below the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station, said police Sgt. Clarence Davies.
“The vehicle lost control and went up an embankment and rolled several times,” he said.
The passenger, a 35-year-old woman from Lyon, France, was airlifted to The Queen’s Medical Center on Oahu in stable condition. The driver was pronounced dead at 12:29 a.m. Monday.
The wreck occurred at about 7:30 p.m., resulting in the closure of the access road for more than five hours.
In a separate wreck, at 5:02 p.m., another vehicle rolled and ran off the access road, Davies said. The three passengers received minor lacerations, he said.
Davies said speed was a factor in the fatal wreck.
He said there were reports of the driver honking to get people out of the way, but he didn’t know if the vehicle’s brakes had gone out.
The death is the fifth official traffic fatality on Hawaii Island this year. Three others died in vehicle collisions, but their deaths don’t count on the official list because two died on private property and the third, in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
