Samuel Miles Jr. was driving home on Farrington Highway with his family and a friend Thursday night when he suddenly saw bright headlights of a pickup truck coming toward them, heard a screeching sound and screaming.

The black, town-bound pickup hit the Volkswagen Jetta Miles was driving, slicing off the driver's side. After the collision, Miles said he got out of the car and could hear his friend's voice and the screams of his wife and 1-year-old daughter. But he couldn't hear the voice of his 3-year-old son, Koa Paka.

"I was just running around and yelling to whoever was around me, 'Where is my son?' " Miles said yesterday at his Wai'anae home. A man who lived nearby guided him to the little boy, who was ejected from the car and still in his car seat, he said.

"I remember taking my son out of his car seat, and he was still breathing, and I held him in my arms and I was just telling him to come back to Daddy, everything's going to be OK," Miles said. "And right before I felt like he took his last breath, I just looked at him and I just told him that Daddy loves him. And that's when I feel that he went."

The driver of the pickup was also killed in the accident.

Miles' wife, Erica, came home from the hospital yesterday, and for the first time the couple visited the scene of the crash in Nanakuli.

"It's hard. We stopped at the site and cried, and as soon as I came home I walked into his room and just broke down," Erica said, her voice breaking. "It's going to be hard staying here without him."

EMOTIONAL PAIN WORST

Erica Miles, 22, was wearing a neck brace and has cuts on her face that are still healing. Samuel Miles' left arm was bandaged and had staples. But the most profound pain is from the loss of their son, which came just days after Samuel Miles' father died.

"All this physical pain that I'm suffering is nothing," said Samuel Miles, a 27-year-old contractor who is serving in the Army Reserve and scheduled to deploy to the Middle East in a few months. "Nothing can compare to the pain that I feel inside for my son."

The couple and their friends and family spoke in front of the sandbox that Samuel Miles' father built for Koa Paka. The boy and his paternal grandfather were inseparable and shared a special bond, they said. They described Koa Paka as a smart, lively boy who loved going to church and was looking forward to going to school this year.

"You could hardly even scold him because he would make these silly faces that would just break you," said his grandmother, Mary Miles.

"I miss my little sunshine," she said, tears rolling down her face. "I know that we will get over this, but right now it's real fresh and it hurts so bad. It just hurts so bad. You guys just cannot imagine the pain, not only losing my husband but I lost my grandbaby, too."

Samuel Miles' cousin, Paula-Jean Leina'ala Lawelawe Young, also called for traffic safety improvements along Farrington Highway.

Police have said a black pickup truck was speeding town-bound on Farrington Highway around 10:20 p.m. Thursday when it lost control, hit a guardrail on the right side of the highway, spring-boarded across two town-bound lanes and sliced off the driver's side of the west-bound Jetta.

The driver of the pickup, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected from the pickup and suffered fatal head injuries, police said. He was identified as Sanford Valdez, 25, of Wai'anae.

The pickup struck a tree and a hollow-tile wall before flipping and landing upside down on a car at 87-1468 Farrington, trapping a 28-year-old passenger inside, police said. Firefighters got the woman out and she was taken to The Queen's Medical Center in good condition.

TRAGEDY STRIKES

That night, Samuel and Erica Miles and their friend, Johnnett Steverson, were heading back home to Wai'anae, happy after completing their midterms at Remington College in Honolulu. They picked up Koa Paka and the couple's 1-year-old daughter at Erica's grandmother's house in Nanakuli.

Koa Paka was in a car seat behind his father, who was driving, and was ejected from the Jetta. He died after he landed in a nearby driveway and was still strapped in his infant car seat, police said. Samuel Miles said the car seat was strapped in the car before the accident.

Samuel and Erica Miles, their 1-year-old daughter and Steverson were taken to Queen's in serious condition. Steverson was in the front passenger seat.

"The passing of my father on Tuesday and the passing of my son on Thursday is so hard," said Samuel Miles, known by family and friends as "Kamu."

"But I told my wife, when we were in the hospital, I looked at her and said, 'You know, we're going to get through this. We'll do our best and just try to move on and put some of the pieces back together.'

"A lot of people asked me how can you stay strong and how do you get through all this. ... The only way I can hold up is through Jesus. He's been keeping me strong. He's been holding me in place."