Louisville, Kentucky: Driver Hospitalized After Car Drives Off Closed I-65 Section at Hospital Curve

A driver was taken to UofL Hospital on Wednesday afternoon after his car drove off a closed section of Interstate 65 South at Hospital Curve in downtown Louisville and overturned onto Chestnut Street below, Louisville Metro Police said.

What police say happened

Officers from the department's First Division responded at about 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 11, to a report of a vehicle that had left the roadway on southbound I-65 near Hospital Curve, police spokesperson Aaron Ellis said. When officers arrived, they found the vehicle overturned onto Chestnut Street below First Street, in an area designated for construction.

Officers, emergency medical crews and the Louisville Fire Department worked to get the driver out of the car. He was alert and conscious when crews took him to UofL Hospital, police said. His current condition is not known. No other vehicles were involved, and police did not identify the driver in their statements on Wednesday.

How the car reached a missing deck

According to the preliminary investigation, the driver was able to get into the construction area and onto the closed portion of I-65 South at Hospital Curve. Police said he did not realize the roadway deck was missing and drove off it.

Police have not said how the driver entered the construction area. The department's Traffic Unit is investigating the crash.

A corridor in the middle of a rebuild

The closed section sits inside the I-65 Central Corridor Project, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet project that is replacing or rehabilitating nine bridges on the interstate through Louisville. State officials put the project cost at 150 million dollars, and the bridges in the corridor were built in the late 1950s.

The five-mile corridor between the Watterson Expressway and Jefferson Street closed for two months in the summer of 2026 so crews could speed up work on the first three bridges, and it reopened on July 29, three days ahead of schedule, with two lanes open in each direction. Construction on those first three bridges is expected to finish in March 2027.

Work has since moved to the six remaining bridges. On Oct. 30, Gov. Andy Beshear announced that three I-65 ramps in Louisville had reopened and that work was underway on the remaining bridges, which include the bridges over Chestnut Street and over Muhammad Ali Boulevard and Brook Street, the stretch known locally as Hospital Curve. The car came to rest in the construction area on Chestnut Street, below the elevated interstate.

Police gave no timeline on Wednesday for the Traffic Unit investigation, and they did not say whether the closed section or its barriers would change while the work continues.