A decades-old love story came to a tragic end when a car struck Elena and Oscar Barcena along the shoulder of Farrington Highway late Friday night, killing the wife and injuring the husband.
The crash happened only several hundred feet from the couple’s Honokai Hale home on Laaloa Street shortly after they got off the bus in what Oscar Barcena described as their nightly routine.
A Waianae woman, 46, was driving a green Chevy Suburban van west at about 9:54 p.m., police said.
As the traffic signal at the Laaloa Street intersection, near Kamokila Park, turned yellow, the driver swerved to the right to avoid hitting the vehicle in front of her, crossing into the shoulder of the road and striking the Barcenas.
Elena Barcena, 56, was taken in critical condition to Pali Momi Medical Center, where she died.
Oscar Barcena, 58, was taken to the Queen’s Medical Center in serious condition with external injures and was released Saturday afternoon.
The motorist was not injured.
Police do not believe speed or alcohol were factors in the crash. While the investigation is continuing, "it just was probably inattention," said Lt. Robert Towne of the police Traffic Division.
Oscar Barcena said he and his wife had gotten off the bus and were four steps from the curb when the van struck them.
Family and friends who gathered at the Barcenas’ house to offer support Saturday described the couple as loving and hard-working.
Elena Barcena worked nights in the deli section of the Kapolei Foodland that opened in mid-October. Oscar Barcena works days as a warehouse worker at Precision Moving and Storage at Kenai Industrial Park.
Oscar Barcena told the Star-Advertiser that since his wife transferred from a Honolulu Foodland to work a night shift at the new Kapolei store, he felt compelled to catch TheBus to Kapolei and escort his wife on her nightly bus ride home.
"Because I love her, and she has to walk 10 minutes from the Foodland to the bus transit center," the husband said by telephone as he prepared to leave Queen’s.
The four-block walk is along a dimly lit stretch of still largely undeveloped tracts in the Kapolei urban core.
Oscar Barcena said he and his wife first met in grade school in the Philippines and were married on Dec. 28, 1978.
He was a police officer in the province of Ilocos Sur in northern Luzon.
The couple have five children and several grandchildren. When they migrated to Hawaii in fall 2010, they brought along their youngest son, Julius, now 17.
The rest of the immediate family remains in the Philippines, relatives said.
Susan Barcena, Oscar’s sister-in-law, said the couple worked hard and had simple pleasures such as watching Filipino television programs.
"She was always a happy person," she said of Elena.
Dorie Mina, a second cousin who also works at the Kapolei Foodland, said Elena loved her job serving customers at the deli counter.
Her death was the 55th recorded on Oahu so far this year. There were 47 at this time last year.
About one in three traffic deaths in 2012 were pedestrians.
On the night of July 18, Guangha Wen, 60, of Pearl City was struck and killed while in a crosswalk on Waimano Home Road. Like Elena Barcena, Wen was walking home from a bus stop after work.
On the night of March 28, 4-year-old Ashton Brown was struck and killed when a truck veered off Farrington Highway in Makaha, crossed into the shoulder and struck the toddler and other family members as they were sitting in a bus shelter.
