A recent graduate of Waipahu Community School for Adults was killed Wednesday in the second fatal crash involving an apparently impaired driver in less than two weeks in the islands.
Kortney Mahealani Biton-Schubert, 18, died after she was ejected from a soft-top Jeep in the eastbound lanes of the H-1 freeway.
Police said five people were in the Jeep at about 9:40 p.m. when the driver, a Wahiawa man, lost control and struck a guardrail about a quarter-mile past the Vineyard Boulevard offramp. The Jeep rolled several times and all five riders were ejected. None appeared to be using seat belts.
Biton-Schubert, of Salt Lake, died at the scene. Emergency Medical Services said four people were taken in critical condition to a hospital: three men, ages 19 to 20, and a 19-year-old woman.
Police said speed and alcohol appeared to be factors in the crash.
“She was a very sweet girl,” said Biton-Schubert’s grandmother Verna Schubert, who identified her. “I loved her very much. She brought great joy to my life.”
She said Biton-Schubert had done some modeling and wanted to attend cosmetology school. The teen also had a talent for drawing and was considering a career as an artist.
Biton-Schubert’s cousin Theresa Schubert said Biton-Schubert regularly carried a sketch pad and filled it was drawings.
“She was very artsy, very creative,” Schubert said. “She was very positive.”
She said her cousin had rough patches during her childhood but was headed in a positive direction, having graduated from Waipahu Community School for Adults in May.
She said learning that the crash was alcohol-related was the “most heartbreaking thing.”
“It was totally avoidable,” she said.
Biton-Schubert’s grandmother said the family is in shock and didn’t know where the group had been headed.
Biton-Schubert was the second person killed in a crash this month that apparently involved an impaired driver. On Aug. 3, Robert Weinstock was killed when the driver of a pickup truck crossed the centerline and smashed into Weinstock’s SUV in Kona on Hawaii island.
The pickup driver, a 26-year-old Kona man, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of an intoxicant and released pending investigation.
Weinstock, 52, was an Army veteran, actor, United Airlines employee and father of three.
Arkie Koehl of MADD Hawaii, which offers services for victims of alcohol-involved crashes, said Hawaii continues to be one of the worst states in the nation for drunken-driving deaths.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Hawaii ranked among the 10 worst states for the percentage of traffic deaths involving alcohol in 2013, the latest year for which data were available.
