A high school senior and contender for the title of Miss Teen USA Florida is dead after a car crash in her home state.
People are mourning young philanthropist and pageant competitor Kadance Fredericksen, 18, following a head-on collision between her sedan and a tractor-trailer in Florida’s Santa Rosa County on Monday.
Florida Highway Patrol released details about the crash on Wednesday, saying that Fredericksen’s vehicle “crossed the center line and entered the eastbound lane,” according to the Pensacola News Journal.
Authorities are investigating what caused Fredericksen’s vehicle to veer into oncoming traffic but believe a “major mechanical error” was to blame, the Tallahassee Democrat reports.
The other driver was a 56-year-old male who suffered minor injuries after his truck made its way to the outside shoulder of the freeway and overturned, according to Florida Highway Patrol.
Fredericksen was Miss Okaloosa County Teen’s representative at last year’s Miss Florida Teen USA pageant. A student at Baker School, she had just been accepted to nine colleges and was planning to study to be a veterinarian.
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Fredericksen also founded the charity Kada’s Promise in 2017, calling it her “greatest accomplishment to date.”
Through the project she had donated 14,000 teddy bears and blankets to children in foster care, homeless shelters, abuse shelters and hospitals. Her work with Kada’s Promise earned her eight gold presidential Volunteer Service Awards, according to her Instagram.
Baker School principal Michael J. Martello remembered Fredericksen as an “exceptional young woman” in a Facebook post on Tuesday, calling her “a beacon of light in our community.”