A Florida woman has gone viral online after calling emergency services to the scene of a car crash in Orlando. There would be nothing unusual about that if Stephanie Oropeza had not been wearing a banana costume at the time. The media dubbed her the “Banana Hero.”
The incident happened early Saturday morning, when a driver crashed into The Moderne Bar, causing damage estimated at no less than $50,000. No one was injured. What caught the attention of the media, and social media in particular, was not the crash itself but the outfit of the woman who called 911.
According to the news site ClickOrlando, Oropeza and her fiancé were returning from a Halloween party around 4 a.m. when they noticed a car driving on the wrong side of the road. According to the woman’s account, the vehicle then slowly veered off the road and hit the bar. Oropeza, still dressed in the banana costume, called the police.
The video of the woman in the banana costume was posted online by The Moderne Bar’s owner, Michael Nguyen. He said some internet users suspected the footage had been generated by artificial intelligence. “They asked: ‘Is this AI? Are you messing with us?’ And I told them: ‘No, it’s really some stray guy in a banana costume wandering the streets of Mills at 4:30 in the morning, saving the day and reporting an accident,'” Nguyen said.
The Florida resident learned of her accidental moment of fame only the next morning.
“I woke up and checked whether anyone had written about the accident. I saw the headline: ‘Banana Hero,'” she said.
After the incident, representatives of the restaurant tracked down the woman and invited her to a free meal to thank her for her response.
Ed. JŁ
