LIHU‘E — Jesselina Kee, 22, of Las Vegas, is the seventh traffic fatality on the Garden Isle this year and the first off-island resident to die on Kaua‘i roads in 2010. County officials released the name of the deceased Tuesday
LIHU‘E — Jesselina Kee, 22, of Las Vegas, is the seventh traffic fatality on the Garden Isle this year and the first off-island resident to die on Kaua‘i roads in 2010.
County officials released the name of the deceased Tuesday afternoon after Kee died in a two-car crash on Kaumuali‘i Highway just west of Puhi on Monday morning.
Kee’s rented vehicle apparently crossed the highway center line and crashed into a westbound vehicle driven by an unidentified 80-year-old Koloa man.
Kee died at the scene and the Koloa man sustained non-life-threatening injuries, a county press releases states. His condition and identity were unavailable by press time Tuesday.
There were no passengers in either vehicle.
According to the Kaua‘i Police Department preliminary report, the woman was heading east on Kaumuali‘i Highway at around 9:45 a.m. Monday when she crossed the center line and crashed into a westbound vehicle.
Traffic along the highway in both directions was re-routed onto the Puhi bypass road (Kipu and Hulemalu roads), and quickly backed up in both directions, slowed further by the one-lane bridge on Hulemalu Road, where a KPD officer directed traffic.
The highway reopened around 1 p.m. Monday.
There were eight traffic fatalities during all of 2009, the lowest total in the past five years.
