For the second time in six months, Honolulu's ambulances have been called to respond to a mass casualty event.
On Wednesday, a city bus rear-ended a pickup truck stalled on the H-1 Freeway near the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. First responders arrived at the incident at around 5:30 a.m.
According to the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, 20 people required medical attention and were transported to hospitals. No one has died.
This comes after the New Year's Eve fireworks explosion that killed six people and injured dozens in the Salt Lake-Āliamanu neighborhood.
Dr. Jim Ireland, director of the department, recounted the Wednesday incident.
"At 5:30 in the morning, you think it's probably commuters coming to work," he said, adding that EMS responds to an incident involving a bus about once a month.
"Whenever you hear bus involved, whether it's a tour bus or a city bus or even, even more so a school bus, you know, there's going to be a lot of people on it, but at the same time, they're big, so generally, their people are protected," he said.
Ireland shared that when he heard the radio call, he thought it could be something big, but it could also be benign.
"The driver of the car was hurt seriously. The bus driver was hurt seriously, and then there were about 18 or so people on the bus that were hurt, that ranged from serious to just minor injuries," he told HPR.
Multiple EMS units responded, including the city's new ambulance bus — the first time it has been dispatched to a crash.
"We've had that bus maybe six months now. So put it to work right away. We were able to get people off the side of the freeway into the ambulance bus for further assessment, triage," he said.
He said EMS doesn't receive many calls in the early mornings, when fewer people are awake.
"Number one, we had a lot of units available. Number two, the ambulance bus came right away," he said. "We had a large workforce there very quickly."
Ireland said the department just acquired new ambulances, and within the year, every front-line ambulance will be less than a year old.
"My job is to take care of the people who take care of everybody who calls 911, and part of that is making sure they have the best equipment, the newest ambulances, the best pay we can get them, and just really take the stresses off them so they can just do the job. That's so, so important," he told HPR.
This story aired on The Conversation on June 5, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Tori DeJournett adapted this story for the web.
