After nearly a semester at Kapiolani Community College, Tayler Nanea Pangan-Fergerstrom had made up her mind to move to California to attend college and pursue a career in photography and art.

Pangan-Fergerstrom, 18, was killed in a single-vehicle crash in Kaimuki at about 12:45 a.m. Friday.

Police said Pangan-Fergerstrom, a 2011 graduate of Kamehameha Schools, was driving a 2000 Chevy Tracker that crashed into a metal railing on Kilauea Avenue in front of Kaimuki Middle School. Police said Pangan-Fergerstrom was trapped in the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene.

Paramedics took a Hilo man, 19, and a California man, 19, to the Queen’s Medical Center in critical condition. An 18-year-old Arizona man, who was in the front seat, went to Kuakini Medical Center in stable condition.

Police said that as the SUV made its way down the steep stretch of Kilauea Avenue, Pangan-Fergerstrom, who was driving, lost control, hit the right curb and slammed into the metal railing at the entrance to the school across from 19th Avenue. It is not known whether the occupants were wearing seat belts.

Police closed Kilauea Avenue between 18th and 20th avenues as officers from the Traffic Division investigated the crash. The road was reopened at about 4:30 a.m.

Anthony Pangan, Pangan-Fergerstrom’s father, said she had recently decided to move to California to live with an aunt and go to school. Most of her closest friends from Kamehameha were there, and "she wanted to get off the rock," Pangan said.

At Kamehameha, Pangan-Fergerstrom was on the bowling and track and field teams.

"It’s like a bad dream. I think she’s going to walk through the door and laugh at us because she always played jokes," Pangan said.

Pangan-Fergerstrom had five siblings. Her parents were divorced, and she lived with her grandparents in Kuliouou, her father said.

Anthony Pangan said his daughter was a gentle person who would chide him if he swore or if he was too hard on his younger children. "Relax, Dad, try to let them have fun," he recalled her saying.

Police said alcohol and speeding might have been factors. Police and witnesses said they saw beer bottles near the crash site.

Police and witnesses said the road was wet in Kaimuki on Friday morning and that the SUV spun around several times before hitting the railing.

Pangan-Fergerstrom’s father and her grandmother Anita Pangan said she was not a partyer and was going out only because her friends were in town from Maui.

Anthony Pangan said he doubts his daughter was drinking. "She hated that stuff," he said, saying she routinely turned down alcoholic drinks when offered to her.

He said two of the passengers in the SUV were her classmates from Kamehameha, and the other was a friend of one of the boys visiting from Maui.

Anita Pangan said her granddaughter was different from other girls, much more caring and gentle than most her age. "She didn’t like it when people hurt other people’s feelings," she said.

And she was a hugger, her grandmother said. "When she hugs you, she just holds you for a long time."

The two had spent time together on Thursday making Pangan-Fergerstrom’s Halloween costume. She had planned to go a party at the Wet’n’Wild water park tonight as a mermaid, her grandmother said. "She was beautiful inside and out," Anita Pangan said.

Zianna Wolfgramm, whose sister Kaimi Zablan was Pangan-Fergerstrom’s best friend, visited the crash site along with her mother, Gina Ahowelo.

Wolfgramm said Zablan and Pangan-Fergerstrom were part of a close-knit group of friends known as "the Fab Five" who had been close since they first began boarding at Kamehameha’s Kapalama campus in the seventh grade.

Pangan-Fergerstrom was the only one of them not to go to the mainland for college. The four on the mainland were trying to reach each other Friday so that they could mourn their loss together "because they can’t be here together," Wolfgramm said.

People living in the neighborhood said there have been numerous crashes in the area, sometimes involving children at the middle school.

Aja Higa, 14, who lives several hundred feet away from the scene, said a motorist took out the middle school’s sign, not far from where Friday’s crash occurred, one or two months ago.

Several neighbors said that since a traffic signal was installed at the intersection of Kilauea and 18th avenues, motorists have had a tendency to try to speed up to make the light before it turns red.

Ginny Meade, who lives two blocks away, said the signal was put in a year or two ago, replacing a four-way stop, and that it was a subject of great debate before the Kaimuki Neighborhood Board.

Meade said the signal might be a mixed blessing. "The speed limit there is just hard to follow," she said.

Pangan-Fergerstrom’s death is the 47th traffic death on Oahu this year, compared with 50 fatalities on Oahu at the same time last year.

Hawaii News Now video: Kaimuki crash kills Kamehameha Schools graduate