New barriers too late to save son, dad says
| • | Previous story: Two young lives lost in an instant |
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward Oahu Writer
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State road crews early yesterday morning placed concrete barriers at the dead end of Franklin Roosevelt Avenue, the site of a fatal crash in which a car flew off the road and plowed into the embankment of a canal.
Two teens were killed and two were injured in the Monday night wreck.
Yesterday afternoon, Lester Kim, the father of a 16-year-old boy who died in the crash, looked at the barriers and lamented that had they been in place three days ago, his son, Leslie Kim, and an 18-year-old woman might still be alive.
"If they did hit these barriers, I think they would have had a better chance anyway," said Kim, adding that warning signs also could have prevented the deaths. "How simple is that? Put up a sign that says, 'Road Ends,' or 'Dead End?' "
Lester Kim said yesterday's visit to the crash site would be his last.
With Kim was his 14-year-old son, Ronald, who was a passenger in the car. As he looked at the three 15-foot barriers that had been placed, Ronald stood quietly next to the family's black Toyota Tacoma pickup and didn't venture close to the site. He was wearing a sling on his left arm.
"All my son Ronald knows is that they were coming down the road and the next thing they knew, they were in the ravine," Lester Kim said.
The road simply ended and dropped off, Lester Kim said. If the state had done something earlier, he said, "I believe my son and Tanya would still be alive."
In other developments yesterday:
The car's driver has not been arrested. An investigation continues.
In what he called a "surreal" incident, Lester Kim's friend, attorney Derek S. Nakamura, related an eerie event Tuesday night in which he witnessed another car fly off the end of Roosevelt Avenue and land in the same canal.
Nakamura, who represents the Kim family, said he was investigating the scene at the end of Roosevelt Avenue to determine conditions along the desolate stretch of pavement at night. Suddenly, he said, a dark blue Mazda drove by, traveled past the road's end and went into the canal.
"It happened at the exact same place, just like the other accident," said Bryan Cheplic, city Emergency Services spokesman. "It was a single vehicle that went into the ditch."
Cheplic said city paramedics responded to an 8:42 p.m. call. He said a lone male in the car refused to be taken to the hospital, but was treated for minor injuries at the scene.
"The guy said he was a passenger in the car," said Honolulu fire Capt. Kenison Tejada, who said firefighters also responded to the emergency call. "We searched all the bushes but we couldn't find anyone. The guy didn't say who the driver was."
Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said crews installed concrete barriers at the end of Roosevelt Avenue to keep motorists from using the dirt access road at the end.
Ishikawa said that someone intentionally tore down a chain link gate that had been locked across the end of the road before the fatal incident. He said some area drivers had used the dirt access road parallel to the canal as a shortcut around Kapolei traffic.
"But it's a very dangerous short cut," said Ishikawa, who said the barriers would now prevent motorists from turning onto the access road.
Ishikawa said the posted speed limit for Roosevelt Avenue is 15 mph because Barbers Point Elementary School is about a half-mile away.
But police say the red Nissan 240SX in which the four teenagers were riding Monday night was traveling at a high rate of speed and went airborne after it reached the end of the road.
Leslie Kim, who was riding in the right-rear passenger seat, and House, riding in the front passenger seat, were both pronounced dead at the scene.
Ronald Kim, who was in the left-rear seat, survived the crash with a broken collarbone.
The driver — identified by friends of the victims as House's boyfriend, Daniel Rebujio — was taken to a hospital in serious condition.
Police have given the driver's age as 19, although friends have said Rebujio is younger.
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
