Still in Her Banana Costume, a Nursing Student Stopped to Help After a 4 A.M. Crash in Orlando
Heading home from a Halloween party, Stephanie Oropeza, a nursing student, saw an SUV veer into the patio of an Orlando bar. She told her fiancé to stop, ran to check on the driver and called 911, dressed as a banana the whole time. The bar went looking for its 'Banana Hero' and thanked her with dinner.
Just News Desk, Correspondent||5 min read
ORLANDO, Fla. - It was about 4 a.m. on Saturday, the hour when Halloween parties finally give up their guests, and Stephanie Oropeza was riding home with her fiancé, still dressed as a banana, when an SUV ahead of them began to drift.
"At first we were just in shock because at first it just started off him driving on the opposite side of the road," she told WKMG News 6. "And then slowly he started just veering into The Moderne."
The vehicle went through the outdoor dining area of The Moderne, a bar on Colonial Drive, striking a cement planter, the patio railing, several tables and about 20 seats, employees told WFTV Channel 9. The bar was closed. No staff members or customers were on the patio, and no injuries were reported. The cause of the crash has not been confirmed.
Ms. Oropeza did not deliberate. "I yelled at my fiancé. I was like, 'You need to stop the car right now,'" she told WESH 2. "And then we start running, and I'm on the phone with 911."
She is studying to become a nurse, and she described what followed as reflex. "I'm actually going to school being a future nurse so it was just instinct," she told WFTV. "I needed to at least call for help and make sure he was okay."
Looking east along Colonial Drive (U.S. 17-92 and State Road 50) toward the Colonial Drive Pedestrian Bridge in downtown Orlando, April 23, 2026. Illustrative image of the road; it is west of The Moderne and does not show the bar, the people or the events in this story. Photo: DanTD, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colonial_Drive_Ped_Bridge-Orlando-03.jpg
She was gone before anyone from the bar could thank her. What remained was surveillance footage of a figure in bright yellow running toward the scene with a phone to her ear, and The Moderne posted it online in search of the person employees had taken to calling the "Banana Hero." The bar, according to WDBO, said it had an "appealing" offer for her, but she had already "split."
Some viewers doubted the footage was real. "They were like, 'Is this AI? Like, are you messing with us?'" Michael Nguyen, the bar's owner, told WKMG. "And I was like, 'No, no, this is really a rogue 4:30 a.m. banana just roaming the streets of Mills, just saving the day, reporting the incident.'"
Ms. Oropeza learned of her new standing the way many people now learn things. "I woke up and I look up if anyone posted about the crash and then see the headline is 'banana hero,'" she told WKMG. "The last thing that would have occurred to me is that there was a surveillance camera and that the next day I'd wake up to 'Banana Hero,'" she told WESH. Asked by WKMG what her superhero name would be, she offered a revision: "Banana Bandit."
The bar's manager, Brantley Newton, said his own first thought was of the hour. "My first reaction was looking at the time that this happened and being grateful that we didn't have any staff, we didn't have any guests out here at the time," he told WFTV.
A man in a banana costume walks past a cemetery in New Orleans on Mardi Gras, Feb. 16, 2010. Illustrative image of a banana costume; it does not show Stephanie Oropeza or the events in this story. Photo: Derek Bridges, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fat_Tuesday_Banana_Man.jpg
The Moderne eventually found her and thanked her with a free meal, WKMG reported, and management told WESH it was creating a banana-flavored specialty cocktail in her honor. Ms. Oropeza, by her own account to WESH, has barely taken the costume off since.
She has been consistent, though, about what she would like people to take from it. "I feel like that's the bare minimum you can do to be a decent human being these days," she told WFTV. To WESH, she put it more plainly still: when you see someone in need, "just help them out and call who you need to call so they can get the help they need," she said. "Despite knowing them or not, despite being in a costume or not."
Sources: WKMG News 6 (ClickOrlando), Jarell Baker, "Woman in banana costume goes viral for helping report crash at Orlando bar," Oct. 25, 2026: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2026/10/25/woman-in-banana-costume-goes-viral-for-helping-report-crash-at-orlando-bar/ ; WESH 2, Olivia Russell, "'Banana Hero' goes viral after car crashes into Orlando bar," updated Oct. 26, 2026: https://www.wesh.com/article/banana-hero-viral-car-crashes-into-orlando-bar/74252710 ; WFTV Channel 9, Angel Green, Brody Wooddell and Chloe Morrissey, "Banana-costumed student helps after SUV crashes into bar," Oct. 24, 2026: https://www.wftv.com/news/local/orange-county/moderne-seeks-mystery-banana-hero-after-accident/U6ZBQCUABBDBJOA33Q76ANVWNA/ ; WDBO, "Banana costume hero helps after Orlando bar crash": https://www.wdbo.com/news/local/banana-hero-goes-viral-after-helping-driver-following-crash-into-orlando-bar/HZUEFDCDVRASZFCLHMLA7TOIEQ/ . All quotations are as published by those sources. Surveillance video and station photos are not reproduced here. All images are illustrative, freely licensed photos from Wikimedia Commons; none shows Ms. Oropeza, The Moderne or the events in this story.
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