Skateboarder holding onto car dies after fall

For family members, 18-year-old skateboarder Alan Danielson’s death was all too fresh Tuesday afternoon.

"I was sleeping, and his friends came and woke me up and told me to get my parents up," said younger sister, Jade, 14. "I got my parents and I ran to him."

Her brother was lying in the street just a few houses down from their Kaneohe home.

Police have started a criminal investigation after Danielson, a 2013 Castle High School graduate, fell from the skateboard he was riding while being pulled by a car.

Danielson was hanging onto the passenger side of the car when he lost control, hitting his head on the pavement at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday at 45-557 Apa­pane St. He was not wearing a helmet.

The accident is being investigated as a possible negligent-homicide case against the driver of the car, said Lt. Robert Towne, police traffic spokes­man.

The driver, 19, was a neighbor and friend of Danielson’s.

Apapane Street has been popular with skateboarders, who speed down hills in the area.

Danielson’s mother, Dawn, said when she got to the scene, there were three other friends who were with her son, two of whom she knew.

"I don’t know who was driving the car," she said.

She called her only son "the best son and brother and boyfriend."

"He always was a really good person," Jade Danielson said. "He always helps me out even when I was not the best sister to him."

Danielson also has an older sister who is 25.

His grandmother Mary Louise Danielson, who lives across the street, said her grandson was a good kid who didn’t drink or smoke and had lots of friends.

She said she awoke at about 2:30 a.m. after she heard somebody calling for a neighbor’s boy. "By the time I got to the hospital, he was already in a coma."

"It shouldn’t be that way," Danielson said of her grandson’s death. "It’s what my son said," that he never thought his son would go before him.

She said Alan’s father, Michael, had said to Alan, "‘Why don’t you go to bed?’ because it was already 2 o’clock."

Alan planned to attend classes both at Windward Community College and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, his grandmother said.

Neighbor Rosetta Lum, 74, said Alan and her grandson Michael Take­ba­ya­shi grew up together, and she cried when she heard he was dead.

"The boy was always at my house playing with my grandson," and later they would do high school proj­ects together, she said. "I used to pick them up from school, Kaneohe Elementary, King Intermediate and Castle High School."

Lum speculated that Alan lost control because of a "very steep bend" in the road.

"I kind of heard the accident. I heard the skateboard going down, then splat. Then nothing. … I heard a voice saying he fell off the skateboard."

The accident is the latest in a string of skateboarding-related injuries on Oahu in recent months.

On April 17, Reid Krucky, 16, was killed while riding a skateboard on the street where he lived in Hawaii Kai. He was being towed by a moped, lost his balance, fell and hit his head on the pavement on Kalani­puu Street, police said. Krucky was taken in critical condition to a trauma center, where he died.

On May 5 a 16-year-old boy was critically injured near 94-1040 Lumi­kula St. in Wai­pahu.

On July 1 a pickup truck hit a 15-year-old skateboarder who was crossing the street in Ma­puna­puna, sending the boy to the hospital in serious condition. The accident happened near the intersection of Salt Lake Boulevard, Puko­loa Street and Puuloa Road.

Punahou School and Hawaii Pacific University basketball standout Kameron Steinhoff, 21, died after an accident May 16, 2011. He, too, was not wearing a helmet, and Steinhoff’s parents have been handing out free helmets at public events since the accident in a push for passage of a helmet law.

But efforts by the City Council this year failed.

One of the bills that was being considered would have required helmets at skateboard parks, and another would have required them on all other city property, such as streets, sidewalks and parks.

The Council Parks Committee in June shelved both bills because of the difficulty of enforcement, and fear that skateboarders would be driven to less visible and illegal areas. Police said the bills called for citations to be issued to violators who are juveniles, although there is no system in place in Family Court to proc­ess such criminal citations.

There have been 20 skateboard-related fatalities statewide in the past 22 years, none of which occurred in skateboard parks, according to the state Department of Health.

From 2006 through 2012 there was an average per year of 819 injuries requiring emergency room treatment or hospitalization.