Ka'sheena Daniels pulled a woman she recognized as her neighbor out of a flipped car on I-10 West near Elysian Fields Avenue on September 25 — then, just moments later, was struck by another vehicle and fell off the side of the interstate. The 31-year-old New Orleans woman was the only person who died in the crash, though multiple others were hurt.
The chain of events began when a car traveling at high speed made a sudden lane change and flipped, according to Fox 8. Several drivers, including Daniels, stopped to help the trapped driver. While people gathered around the overturned vehicle, another car struck one of the stopped cars, pushing it into the crowd that had formed to help. Daniels had pulled the trapped woman free only a few moments before she was struck, according to her friend Franchon Williams, who witnessed the crash and told the outlet that Daniels pulled the woman out of the flipped car just before being hit herself.
Daniels was born and raised in New Orleans, worked in accounting, and was raising her adopted son, Noah. She had celebrated a birthday shortly before her death. Her mother, O'Sheenana Daniels, helped authorities locate her daughter after the crash and later said her daughter would help people when she could, according to the same report — though she has also expressed regret that Ka'sheena stopped to help that night.
A Paramedic Career Cut Short
Williams and Daniels had planned to start paramedic school together the following week, the station's report notes. Williams now says she plans to continue on and help achieve the goal the two had set for themselves. Daniels' family has set up a GoFundMe to help cover her funeral costs and to support Noah going forward.
New Orleans police continue investigating the crash, per the same account. The circumstances echo a legal landscape Louisiana lawmakers revised only weeks before the crash: effective August 1, the state expanded its Move Over law under Act 234, amending Revised Statute 32:125 to require drivers to safely change lanes or slow down when approaching any disabled or nonoperational civilian vehicle displaying hazard lights, according to Plantation Tire & Auto. Separately, Louisiana's Good Samaritan statute, Revised Statute 9:2793, grants civil liability immunity to people who in good faith gratuitously render emergency care or move an injured person to safety, as explained by Super Lawyers.
Drones Deployed to Map the Crash Scene
Four days after the fatality, NOPD temporarily shut down I-10 West at the I-610 split for about an hour on the morning of September 29 to deploy aerial drones for scene mapping and crash reconstruction, Hoodline previously reported. Traffic was detoured onto I-610 West during that closure. Police had used the same aerial drone reconstruction technique at the same interchange following another fatal collision there on June 19, 2024, according to NOPD records cited in that report.
The practice traces back in part to June 2016, when NOPD Officer Natasha Hunter was struck and killed on an I-10 shoulder while investigating an earlier multi-vehicle crash — a line-of-duty death that pushed the department toward remote mapping technology so officers no longer need to work on foot in live traffic. Less than a week before Daniels' death, a 49-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed attempting to cross I-10 West near Crowder Boulevard in New Orleans East, another incident NOPD's Traffic Fatality Unit investigated.
Citywide Numbers Show a Mixed Picture
Fatal traffic accidents in New Orleans were down 24% year-to-date as of late September compared to the same stretch of 2025, though NOPD reported that the majority of this year's traffic deaths in the city have involved vehicles striking pedestrians, according to NOPD News. During the week of September 20 to 26 — the same week as the fatal crash — NOPD's Traffic Division executed 230 vehicle stops, issued 836 traffic citations, and made eight DWI arrests across the city.
The danger isn't unique to New Orleans. Preliminary data from the Governors Highway Safety Association released in July showed drivers struck and killed 7,148 pedestrians nationwide in 2024, keeping national pedestrian fatalities nearly 20% above 2016 levels, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. For Daniels' family, those statistics offer little comfort. She is remembered as a woman who, true to form, stopped to help a stranger — and never got the chance to start the paramedic career she and Williams had planned together.
