A video of a white SUV driving the wrong way on H-1 last week elicited thousands of reactions on social media as users tried to figure out who was behind the wheel. Some compared it to the infamous highway police chase of O.J. Simpson in a white Bronco.

The driver, it turned out, was Honolulu Department of Emergency Services Director Jim Ireland. 

Ireland was driving an official EMS vehicle toward Thomas Square and the Blaisdell Center to follow up on homeless complaints when he witnessed a man get hit by a car on Ward Avenue at around 11 a.m. on Aug. 27, Ireland said Thursday.

“It was an emergency situation with an individual running on the freeway — the lights and sirens were activated to alert oncoming drivers and to help protect the individual and the officers that were on foot,” he told Civil Beat in an email after declining to be interviewed.

But the image of the SUV maneuvering upstream as cars around it either came to a standstill or tried to get out of the way raised questions about safety concerns for some.

How It All Went Down

Court documents show that William Jardine-White was hit while running from the police after allegedly swinging around a hatchet and damaging a car. He “appeared to have been seriously injured,” Ireland said, but continued running through traffic before eventually heading down to the H-1.

The police report on the incident says that Ireland stopped to pick up Officer Edward Thommes on his way to the scene. Thommes said the two saw Jardine-White “run across the entire freeway,” climbing back and forth over the median. He said he took a witness statement from Ireland after the arrest, describing him as “sober and coherent.”

After the officers took Jardine-White into custody along the side of the highway, Ireland said he treated the man and an ambulance took him to a trauma center. Jardine-White was arrested on suspicion of criminal property damage and for not obeying a police officer.

“I am trained and certified in emergency driving, and it was my goal to protect him and the officers and initiate care as soon as possible,” Ireland said in an earlier written statement.

Mayor Rick Blangiardi stands by Ireland’s statement, according to communications director Scott Humber.

Hawaiʻi state law gives emergency vehicle operators wide latitude to ignore traffic laws on their way to emergencies, including driving against the normal flow of traffic, as long as there is “due regard” for safety. 

‘That Doesn’t Make Any Sense To Me’

The City Council member who chaired the public safety committee earlier this year when Ireland was up for reconfirmation raised concerns that Ireland’s actions last week were unsafe and could have led to more injuries.

“I’m not going to profess to be an expert in first responders,” council member Val Okimoto told Civil Beat on Wednesday, “but I have common sense, and that doesn’t make any sense to me.”

During the reconfirmation process, some former EMS workers testified that Ireland fostered a toxic work environment; one said he inserted himself into emergency situations because he liked the adrenaline rush. In response, the committee postponed its vote but eventually reconfirmed him during a hearing in April after supporters — including Gov. Josh Green, a medical doctor — testified in his favor. 

Okimoto said that if she still chaired the public safety committee, she would schedule a hearing examining Ireland’s latest actions. “I think that this is something that should be looked into,” she said.

But today that responsibility would fall to the new public safety committee chair, council member Augie Tulba, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

Emergency vehicles sometimes get into crashes. Roughly 2,000 to 3,000 people were injured each year in the United States between 2012 and 2018 from ambulance crashes, most of which happened when the ambulance was responding to an emergency, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Medic Ambulance President and Chief Operating Officer James Piersons reviewed the video footage of Ireland’s wrong-way rescue. He did not find Ireland’s maneuver overly concerning,

“It’s not normal,” he said, and judging from the video, it didn’t look like a comfortable situation for Ireland. But Piersons said emergency vehicle drivers sometimes have to drive against the flow of traffic if that’s the quickest way to access a scene.

“That’s what professionals do,” he said. “They have to make those decisions. So for me, I would trust his judgment.”