A commercial tow truck towing a refrigerated truck crashed into 10 vehicles Wednesday afternoon as it was coming down the Likelike on-ramp to Kahekili Highway, injuring four people, one critically.
Witnesses told police the tow wagon appeared to lose its brakes, hitting the guardrail and striking other vehicles, while others thought they saw the driver using a cellphone, said Lt. James Slayter of the Honolulu Police Department’s Vehicular Homicide Section.
The crash occurred about 2:15 p.m., he said.
Emergency Medical Services reported that a 31-year-old man was in critical condition, two women, ages 87 and 70, were in stable condition, and another woman, whose age was unknown, was in serious condition. Paramedics treated and transported them to a hospital.
The driver of a small tour bus, who declined to give her name, said the tow truck “just whacked my window. I don’t think he lost control because the tow truck was going straight.”
“I saw him hitting the cars going down, left to right, all the way down,” she said. “It seemed like once he hit my bus, he picked up speed heading toward the traffic light. It seemed like he was going at a high speed. All the cars got hit — one by one — going down.”
She said she suspected the truck hitched to the tow wagon was hitting the other vehicles.
However, the tow truck sustained damage to its front end and right side.
Duane Degray, 37, of Kahaluu said he was driving home and was “stopped at the light and heard a series of crashes from behind.”
A blue Ford vehicle, which other witnesses say went airborne, “came down into the back of mine,” he said.
He pulled over and jumped out of his car to see if the driver was alright.
“He was slumped over on the passenger seat, making groaning sounds. He was unresponsive, but he was breathing,” Degray said.
EMS took the man in critical condition to a hospital.
Degray said the blue vehicle appeared to be a Ford van, with the logo for Sunrun solar on it, that “looks like a Smart car now.”
Slayter said it was a Ford hybrid or crossover vehicle.
An Enchanted Lake resident was on her way to work when she caught a glimpse of the blue vehicle, which she said looked as if it were “smashed into a ball. It was horrible.”
The bright pink Pinky Tows truck, hitched to what appeared to be a refrigerated box truck, came to rest on Likelike heading into Kaneohe, just before Anoi Road.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser calls to Pinky Tows were not returned.
The local Sunrun office declined to answer any questions, and directed questions to an email address for a mainland office.
Traffic investigators spent roughly five hours at the scene, causing afternoon rush-hour traffic to back up to the Wilson Tunnels.
Police reopened the on-ramp at 7:30 p.m.
The Department of Transportation extended by an extra hour the opening of the Kailua-bound lanes of the Pali Highway until 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Due to the months-long Pali Highway closure for rockfall mitigation, the Likelike Highway is one of the few main arteries to travel to Windward Oahu from Honolulu.
