Driver kills 1 and injures 2 in Chinatown

Police arrested the 56-year-old driver of a 2018 white Toyota RAV4 that struck three pedestrians Monday in a marked Chinatown crosswalk, killing one and injuring two.

She is suspected of first-degree negligent homicide, first-degree negligent injury, second-degree negligent injury and driving under the influence of an intoxicant.

The Toyota driver claimed she was on an anti-seizure medication, but police said speed and inattention also appeared to be factors in the crash.

Witnesses told police the woman was speeding in the 25 mph zone, ran a red light and drove around a Hawaiian Electric Co. van stopped at the red light on South Beretania Street before the intersection with Maunakea Street.

A woman critically injured was thrown roughly 75 feet from the crosswalk, indicating the high rate of speed, police Vehicular Homicide Lt. Andre Peters said.

The Toyota RAV4 driver was heading Ewa on Beretania Street at about 3:05 p.m. when she fatally struck a woman in her 60s, critically injuring another woman also in her 60s and seriously injuring a man, 69, authorities said.

One of the women landed on the hood of the Toyota and was trapped when the Toyota crashed into a blue BMW heading in the opposite direction. Three occupants of the BMW — a 42-year-old woman, a 14-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl — were taken in stable condition to a hospital, Emergency Medical Services said.

When the BMW was struck, the impact caused it to hit an eastbound Scion.

Upon completion of the traffic investigation, firefighters extricated the woman’s body.

Pisisami Vita and his girlfriend, both 26, of Mililani, had just parked their car on Maunakea Street and were heading to a restaurant when two women passed their car. They were the two pedestrians injured in the accident.

Vita and his girlfriend, who declined to give her name, turned around when they heard the crash and ran to see whether they could help.

When the girlfriend saw the woman pinned between the cars, it reminded her of her own mother.

“The lady does look just like my mom,” the girlfriend said. “She’s short. Nothing we could do because she was stuck in between the two cars.

“When we first checked she had a pulse, but by the time the paramedics got here, she didn’t have a pulse.”

Vita said that the driver of the white SUV tried to move her car.

“We had to yell at her to stop,” said his girlfriend, who was disturbed by the tragedy.

Francis Wong, 84, at Jenny’s Leis &Flowers, said his neighbor caught a portion of the accident on videotape. “It showed the car speeding and running the red light because the other cars were stopped.”

Peters reminds motorists to heed the warning on prescription labels that say, “Do not operate machinery,” and “that includes vehicles.”