Newly released 911 recordings paint a chaotic picture of the Nov. 19 incident in which a BMW traveling the wrong way on the H-2 freeway resulted in a series of collisions that killed one man and seriously injured two others.
Initial police reports said a white BMW driven by 21-year-old Jameson Yong of Waianae was traveling south in the northbound lanes of the freeway when it collided head-on with a 2005 Toyota Tacoma pickup driven by 40-year-old Lance Miyashiro of Wahiawa.
Miyashiro was pronounced dead at the scene. Yong was taken to the Queen’s Medical Center in critical condition. A 58-year-old Mililani man was also seriously injured when his 2005 Jeep Liberty struck Miyashiro’s pickup after its initial collision with the BMW.
The recordings, released Friday by the Honolulu Police Department, consist of 13 calls made within two minutes of the collisions.
The first, recorded at 2:18:58 a.m., was from a man who witnessed the initial crash.
"(The BMW) was going the wrong way on the freeway, and I looked in the rearview mirror and he went head-on into some guy," the caller said.
When the operator asked him to confirm that the car had collided with another vehicle, the caller responded, "Yeah, and it was bad, and there’s more cars behind him, too."
Operators fielded several more calls, gradually piecing together the location and circumstances of the crashes.
At 2:19:55 a caller reported "three crushed cars" on the freeway.
"One’s on the left shoulder," the caller said. "Two are in the middle of the road."
A minute later one of the operators took a call from someone who said he had collided with one of the vehicles.
"I just hit a vehicle that was on the freeway. … I just hit him," the caller said. "I’m not hurt, but the car in front of me is completely turned over."
Seconds later another caller at the scene reported on the condition of one of the victims.
"Someone is in a car right now, and all I can see is his stomach contents," the caller said. "He’s moaning in the car."
The recordings also included calls from people in nearby apartments who were awakened by the noise of the crashes.
