What happened
A 17-year-old walking on West 18th Place in Indianola was struck and killed by an eastbound SUV shortly before 6 p.m. on Sunday, September 27. The driver of the SUV was 15 years old, according to the Iowa State Patrol.
Indianola police and emergency crews were sent to the 400 block of West 18th Place at about 5:50 p.m. on a report that a vehicle had struck a pedestrian. When officers arrived, bystanders were already performing CPR. Officers took over, and a medical helicopter was requested, but the teen was pronounced dead at the scene. (WHO 13; Indianola Independent Advocate)
According to the State Patrol's crash report, a 2004 Chevrolet TrailBlazer was traveling east on West 18th Place, and the teen was walking west in the roadway. The Patrol said the driver applied the brakes and tried to avoid the pedestrian but could not stop in time. (KCRG; Western Iowa Today)
Indianola police did not release the names of the pedestrian or the driver "because of their ages and out of respect for their families," the Des Moines Register reported. The Iowa State Patrol is investigating. No citations or charges have been announced.
Our condolences
A 17-year-old went out on a Sunday evening in their own town and did not come home. There are no words that make that bearable for a family. Neighbors on West 18th Place tried to save this young person's life with their own hands before help arrived, and they will carry that evening too.
We are praying for the teen's family, friends and classmates, and for everyone in Indianola who is grieving this week. We are also thinking of the 15-year-old driver and that family, who are living through something no teenager should have to face. And we are grateful to the bystanders, officers and medics who did everything they could.
Safety context
Pedestrian deaths are not rare, even though each one feels impossible to the family that suffers it. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Traffic Safety Facts: Pedestrians, 2023 Data, 7,314 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in the United States in 2023, about 20 every day. Seventy-four percent of those deaths happened away from intersections, on stretches of road like this one, and 77 percent happened in the dark.
The age of the driver matters too. NHTSA's Young Drivers, 2023 Data found that drivers 15 to 20 years old were 5.1 percent of licensed drivers but 8.9 percent of the drivers involved in fatal crashes.
A few habits help on neighborhood streets:
- Drivers: expect people in the road. On residential streets, people walk in the roadway, especially where sidewalks are missing or blocked. Slow down enough that you could stop for anyone you can see.
- Walkers: face traffic. Iowa law (Iowa Code § 321.326) directs pedestrians walking along a road to walk on the left side, facing oncoming vehicles, so each can see the other coming.
- Parents of new drivers: ride along. Iowa's permit system exists because the first years behind the wheel are the most dangerous. The more supervised miles a new driver gets on neighborhood streets, the better.
The rights of families after a crash like this
In general terms, when a pedestrian is killed by a vehicle, the family may have a wrongful death claim against the driver and, often, against the vehicle's owner and the owner's insurance. In Iowa, that claim is brought through the estate of the person who died. Under Iowa Code § 633.336, damages for lost services and support are divided among the surviving spouse, children and parents. Separately, Iowa Code § 613.15A lets parents recover for the loss of their child's services, companionship and society. Iowa's general deadline for these claims is two years under Iowa Code § 614.1(2).
I have handled pedestrian cases like this one before, including one in Scottsbluff and another in Omaha. In both, the person who was hit was walking in the roadway, not in a crosswalk. I will be direct with families: these cases are difficult. The report says this teen was walking in the roadway, and an insurance company will lean hard on that fact. Under Iowa law, a pedestrian crossing outside a crosswalk has to yield to vehicles (Iowa Code § 321.328). But being in the road does not take away a person's protection under the law. Iowa places a separate duty on every driver, "notwithstanding" the pedestrian rules, to "exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon any roadway" (Iowa Code § 321.329). Iowa also requires every driver to go slowly enough to stop within "the assured clear distance ahead" (Iowa Code § 321.285). A driver still has a duty to pay attention and to avoid anything in the roadway that they could see.
What can be said about this crash, conditionally, is this. The reported direction of travel matters. The teen was walking west and the TrailBlazer was traveling east. That means the teen was facing the vehicle as it approached, which is how Iowa law tells people to walk when they have to walk along a road. Where exactly the teen was in the roadway, at the edge or nearer the middle, has not been reported. The key questions are what the driver could have seen, and when. Those are answered by evidence: the length of any skid marks, where the TrailBlazer came to rest, what witnesses saw, the light, and whether anything drew the driver's attention away from the road. If both share some of the blame, Iowa's comparative fault law (Iowa Code § 668.3) reduces the family's recovery by the teen's share of fault. It bars recovery only if that share is greater than the combined fault of those the claim is brought against. A pedestrian partly in the wrong is not automatically without a claim.
A 15-year-old driver raises questions the investigation will answer. In Iowa, a 15-year-old can drive only under an instruction permit or a special minor's restricted license. With an instruction permit, a qualifying licensed adult has to be in the seat beside the driver (Iowa Code § 321.180B). The special minor's license allows driving alone only on limited routes, such as between home and school (Iowa Code § 321.194). Nothing published says which one the driver held, or whether an adult was in the vehicle, and no one should assume. It matters, though, because the answer can change who is responsible. Separately, under Iowa Code § 321.493, the owner of a vehicle driven with the owner's consent is liable for damage caused by the driver's negligence. Who owned the TrailBlazer has not been reported.
Evidence from a scene like this disappears quickly. Tire marks fade, and home security and doorbell cameras on the street may record over their footage within days. Families should also expect contact from insurance companies soon, and it is almost never in a grieving family's interest to give a recorded statement or sign anything before they know what the State Patrol's investigation found.
Learn more about your rights: families facing a loss like this may want to read about how pedestrian injury and death claims work, about what a wrongful death claim covers when a child is killed, about how Iowa injury and wrongful death claims work, including Iowa's two-year deadline, about help for families in the Des Moines area, and about how to get an Iowa State Patrol crash report.
How I help families in crisis
When a family loses a teenager this way, they are grieving, and they are also hearing, from the first news report on, that their child was "in the roadway." That is a heavy thing to carry on top of the loss. My job is to take the legal side of it off their shoulders, and to make sure the full story gets told.
In practice, that means getting the State Patrol's crash report and reconstruction and following them to their conclusion. It means moving quickly to preserve what can still be found on West 18th Place: camera footage, witness accounts, and measurements of the scene. It means finding out what license the driver held, who owned the TrailBlazer, and every insurance policy that might answer for what happened. And it means taking up the shield with every adjuster, so no parent in mourning is pressured into a statement or a signature.
Over my career I have recovered more than $23 million for injured people and grieving families, earned countless five-star reviews from clients and endorsements from fellow attorneys, and been honored as part of a Best of Omaha personal injury team in 2025 and 2026.
If this is your family, you can call whenever you are ready. We can talk through what happened at no cost and with no obligation, and I am paid only if I recover for you.
Frequently asked questions
- What happened in the pedestrian crash on West 18th Place in Indianola, Iowa?
- Shortly before 6 p.m. on Sunday, September 27, 2026, a 17-year-old walking west in the roadway in the 400 block of West 18th Place in Indianola was struck and killed by an eastbound SUV driven by a 15-year-old, according to the Iowa State Patrol. Bystanders performed CPR, but the teen died at the scene.
- What are the rights of families after a crash like this?
- A family may have a wrongful death claim against the driver and the vehicle's owner. Iowa requires every driver to use due care to avoid any pedestrian on the roadway, even one outside a crosswalk. If fault is shared, Iowa law reduces the recovery rather than barring it, unless the pedestrian's share is greater.
- How does Frank Younes help families after something like this?
- Frank takes the legal weight off the family: following the State Patrol investigation, preserving camera footage and witness accounts, identifying the vehicle's owner and every insurance policy, and handling every adjuster so no grieving parent is pressured. The first conversation is free.
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