A 3-year-old girl is in critical condition after a parked pickup truck rolled backward in a Mountain View driveway and struck her, according to the Hawaiʻi Police Department. The crash happened around 10:03 a.m. on Saturday in the 11-3000 block of Hibiscus Street, involving a black 2004 Toyota Tacoma that had apparently been shifted into neutral gear by accident before it began rolling.
According to a Hawaiʻi Police Department report, the truck rolled back and struck the toddler as she walked behind it, then continued moving until it hit a second parked, unattended vehicle and a tree. Officials said no one else was hurt in the crash, though the second vehicle reportedly had three young occupants inside at the time — a 17-year-old girl, a 6-year-old boy and a 3-year-old boy — per KHON2. The incident was assigned report number 26-071269 under Sergeant Keith Nacis.
The injured girl was rushed to Hilo Benioff Medical Center in critical condition before being medevacked to Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women & Children on Oʻahu, the station's report notes. Hawaiʻi Island police confirmed alcohol and drugs were not believed to be factors in the crash, as reported by Big Island Now, and the case remains under active investigation by the department's Area I Traffic Enforcement Unit.
Why the Toddler Was Flown Across the State
The transfer to Oʻahu reflects a gap in East Hawaiʻi's medical infrastructure rather than any delay in initial care. Hilo Benioff Medical Center — renamed in February 2024 following a $50 million donation from Marc and Lynne Benioff — serves as the region's primary acute care hospital and Level III Trauma Center, but it lacks pediatric intensive care and specialized pediatric trauma surgery, according to background compiled by Beat of Hawaii. Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu is the state's only full-service specialty hospital for women and children and houses Hawaiʻi's sole pediatric intensive care unit, per Hawaiʻi Pacific Health, making it the default destination for critically injured children from across the islands.
An Open Question About How the Gear Slipped
Investigators have not yet determined exactly how the Tacoma's gear shifted into neutral, and it remains unclear whether any administrative or statutory traffic citations will follow. Inadvertent gear shifting in parked vehicles, particularly in larger models like pickup trucks, is a recognized cause of non-traffic child injuries nationally, according to research cited by the personal injury firm Lieff Cabraser. Safety data compiled by Kids and Car Safety and referenced by the same firm shows more than 60% of child driveway backover and rollaway incidents involve larger vehicles such as pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs, largely because of their substantial blind zones.
Nationally, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that non-traffic backover and rollaway accidents cause roughly 210 fatalities and 15,000 injuries every year, with children under five facing the highest risk, per figures published by Norton Children's. It is a sobering statistic for a rural community like Mountain View, where driveways often double as informal gathering spaces for kids.
A Pattern of Close Calls on the Big Island
The crash comes just months after Hoodline reported that a 3-year-old girl on Hawaiʻi Island was killed by a reversing car in a Waikoloa residential parking area in February. Both incidents underscore how residential parking areas and driveways can turn deadly for young children in an instant, even when no traffic law appears to have been broken. Separately, Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes § 291C-121.5 prohibits an operator or adult passenger from leaving a vehicle unattended for five minutes or longer with a child aged eight or younger inside, a law the Hawaiʻi State Legislature designed in part to guard against exactly this kind of accidental vehicle movement.
Hawaiʻi Island's Area I Traffic Enforcement Unit, the same unit investigating Saturday's crash, had recorded seven traffic fatalities in East Hawaiʻi through early May of this year, down from 12 during the same period in 2025. Police are asking anyone who witnessed the Hibiscus Street crash to contact Officer Laurence Davis at (808) 961-2339 or reach out anonymously through Crime Stoppers at (808) 961-8300.
