The stepfather of a California teenager who died in a jet ski accident Sunday said he has relived the moments of the crash “every day, every minute since.”
Kristen Fonseca had just slowed down on her rented watercraft in Keehi Lagoon when another jet ski, traveling at least 40 mph — allegedly ridden by an inattentive tourist — rammed her from behind, Mario Canton said Thursday in the family’s first public statements.
Before the crash, Canton said, he yelled at the 20-year-old Australian tourist closing in on his stepdaughter to “look in front of him because he was coming close.”
But two to three seconds later, Canton said, the Australian rider slammed into the back of Fonseca’s jet ski, knocking her head into the controls before she fell into the water.
Fonseca, a 16-year-old aspiring nurse from Vacaville, Calif., was pronounced dead at the Queen’s Medical Center Monday afternoon.
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources and Honolulu police have opened separate investigations into the crash.
The other rider was taken to a hospital in serious condition.
Canton, 43, works for the Department of Homeland Security but declined to specify the responsibilities of his job as he spoke to reporters Thursday at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
He urged city and state officials to consider regulations that would make jet ski riding safer in Keehi Lagoon.
“You’re confined to a specific area of this lagoon with a watercraft that can get up to very high rates of speed,” Canton said. “If somebody slows down for even half a second, there can be a potential accident in this limited area.”
Canton flew out to Honolulu last week for work, then was joined by his wife and three stepchildren for “the last little holiday before she (Kristen) goes back to school next week.”
Fonseca would have been a junior at Vacaville High School, a 3.5 grade-point average student who had just gotten her driver’s license on her 16th birthday, Dec. 20. Her dream was to study nursing at UCLA.
Wednesday was supposed to be Fonseca’s first day volunteering as a candy striper at a Kaiser Permanente facility in Vacaville, Canton said.
“It was her passion to help others, which is why she wanted to be a nurse,” Canton said.
She was the baby of the family who obeyed California’s driving laws but loved the adrenaline rush of roller coasters and jet skis, which she had ridden before on Oahu during a 2009 family vacation, Canton said.
On the family’s latest trip, Canton found Aloha Jet Ski online and brought Fonseca and her sister, Monique, 21, out to Keehi Lagoon, where they were joined by one other group of visitors — the 20-year-old Australian from Brisbane and his female companion.
During the riders’ safety briefing, Canton said they were told to stay within a specified course and to “make sure you look in front of you. Make sure that there’s safe distance because the machines don’t have brakes. That’s pretty much the extent of the safety brief. … There was no speed limitations.”
For 20 to 30 minutes, the three Jet Skis zipped around a circuit in Keehi Lagoon. Fonseca rode alone, the Australians were together until the woman later got off, and Monique Fonseca rode behind Canton, he said.
Even with his older stepdaughter riding on his jet ski, Canton said his speedometer at times read 40 mph, and “I don’t think I had it up to full power.”
Canton said the Australian seemed to be riding well above 40 mph.
“I was thinking to myself he was being irresponsible, he was standing up on the jet ski, high rate of speed, wasn’t looking forward when he was supposed to be operating the machine,” Canton said.
Glenn Cohen, owner of Aloha Jet Ski, could not be reached for comment Thursday. No one answered the company phone, and a recording said the phone system was not accepting messages.
On Monday, Cohen told the Star-Advertiser that Sunday’s crash was “the first time I have ever experienced anything like that.”
Cohen said he helped pull Fonseca from the water, but declined to go into details.
“My main concern is with the poor girl and her family,” Cohen said at the time. “That’s all I care about. I hope she’s OK. My heart goes out to the family. She’s a 16-year-old girl, a very nice girl, who went through a horrific accident. It was very hard for me to watch.”
Canton said his elder stepdaughter got cold after 20 to 30 minutes of riding and that he pulled up to Aloha Jet Ski’s barge to let her off.
Fonseca then pulled up about 30 to 40 feet away and began slowing down, with a quizzical look on her face.
“She had a smile on her face and was looking at me like, ‘Is it time to go in? Do I keep going?'” Canton said. “She had that look on her face like she was waiting for me to give her instruction.”
Then Canton saw the 20-year-old tourist approach “at a very high rate of speed … looking towards the dock, so he was not looking in front of him,” Canton said.
Fonseca’s brother, Kevin, 19, went shopping with his mother instead of riding and is “beating himself up for not being there,” Canton said. “He felt if he was there it would have been him on the back of that watercraft, not Kristen. … There are so many ‘what ifs.’ Should we not have come to Hawaii? Should we not have gone jet-skiing?’ We can talk ‘what ifs’ all day long. It’s not going to change what’s occurred. We’re still figuring out how we’re going to move on without our baby girl. But we’re trying.”
Canton and his wife, Evangelina, laid flowers at Keehi Lagoon on Wednesday and spoke briefly to officials at Aloha Jet Ski, who offered their condolences, Canton said.
Despite the sadness of Fonseca’s death, Canton said he and Evangelina have been touched by Hawaii’s aloha spirit.
And he considers Jessica Lani Rich of the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii “our family now” after her assistance.
The Cantons and Monique and Kevin Fonseca also have been receiving hundreds of texts, emails and Facebook posts since the accident. The children have already left for home; Mario and Evangelina fly back to California today with Fonseca’s body.
Her friends have planned a candlelight vigil for Sunday at a park in Vacaville, and the family will begin making funeral arrangements Monday.
Mario Canton wept at times Thursday as he spoke about his stepdaughter — and apologized for having a cold.
“When I went to the hospital, I was still wet from the accident,” Canton said.
There were brief flashes of happy memories, though, when Canton thought about the girl he helped raise from the age of 2.
He laughed when he recalled threatening that he would move down to Los Angeles with Evangelina when Fonseca enrolled at UCLA so they could be close to her. And he remembered Fonseca’s displeasure when Canton wanted to continue calling her by her childhood nickname, “Tootie.”
“As she got older, she said, ‘Papi, you can’t call me that any more, especially in front of my friends,'” Canton said. “She always called me Papi.”
“I would like her to be remembered as happy, adventurous, glowing, innocent and smart,” Canton said. “She would light up a room whenever she walked in.”
