Banana Nanna to the Rescue
Stephanie Oropeza was recently invited to a Halloween party on short notice, so she slipped on the only costume in her closet: An oversize banana her fiancé had bought a few years ago. After the party, as Oropeza and her fiancé drove home around 4 a.m., they noticed a car swerving behind them into the opposite lane. They thought the driver was trying to pass them, but a few seconds later, the car sped off the road and crashed into to the patio at the Moderne in Orlando. “Stop the car right now,” Oropeza recalled telling her fiancé. “We need to go check on him.” He pulled over, and Oropeza, still wearing the banana, called 911 and rushed to the scene, where the car had crashed into fencing, chairs, a cement planter and tables. Oropeza, who is studying to be a nurse and works in a pediatrician’s office, said she was preparing to give CPR or help anyone who was injured. “I needed to make sure he was okay,” said Oropeza, 25. “I don’t think I would’ve been okay with myself if something would’ve happened.”
When Oropeza reached the patio, she said the driver, the only person in the vehicle, stepped out of the car and appeared uninjured. Surveillance footage caught Oropeza talking on the phone to a dispatcher in front of the bar, which had closed a few hours earlier that day, Oct. 24. Orlando police officers arrived a few minutes later. Nobody was injured in the crash, police said, and the driver was cited for careless driving. Oropeza said she went home, slipped off her costume and went to sleep. “Everything that has transpired since then,” Oropeza said, “has been absolutely bananas.” Later that day, Oropeza said she searched online about the crash. She was shocked to find the bar, the Moderne, had posted the surveillance footage of her helping at the scene. The bar wrote it was grateful the woman quickly reported the crash. “We are looking for this unnamed banana hero,” the Moderne wrote. “We have an appealing offer for them, but they split before we could thank them.”
Oropeza said she was so focused on assisting after the crash that she forgot she had been wearing her costume. “It all started coming back to me,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, I was wearing a banana suit.’” Oropeza commented on Instagram: “I’m right here!” They gave her a free pasta dinner that night. She wore her costume. Oropeza is still being recognized for her efforts. She donned the banana suit for interviews with local news channels. She said strangers have called her a hero; an Orlando shop made stickers that featured a photo of Oropeza in her costume with the caption “BANANA HERO.” The Moderne added a cocktail to its menu made of rum and banana in honor of Oropeza, who sampled it Thursday night in her costume. Oropeza said the attention has been a bit overwhelming. She said she did what she expected anyone would do for a stranger who might be injured. “I’m normally not out at 4 a.m. saving people,” she said. “But I guess I got caught at the right time and the right place.”
Yellow humor
One monkey says to another monkey, “What rhymes with Banana.”
and the other monkey says, “No it doesn’t.”
What do you call a shoe made out of a banana?
Slippers.
Why did Billy get fired from the banana factory?
He kept throwing out the bent ones.
Why did the banana go to see the doctor?
Because it wasn’t peeling very well.
November 4th Birthdays
1946 – Laura Bush, 1992 – Kiana Madiera, 1970 – Samantha Smith, 1937 – Lorretta Swit
1961 – Ralph Macchio, 1988 – Dez Bryant, 1879 – William Rogers, 1969 – Matthew McConaughey