The decision that spared this girl from her friends’ fatal limo crash

Dana Carlino was invited on a winery tour of Long Island with her friends — but decided not to go so she could work at an animal shelter.

A last-minute decision not to join her friends on their ill-fated winery tour of Long Island may have saved the life of a 23-year-old woman who opted to work that day.
Dana Carlino, 23, was invited out with her buddies — but backed out so that she could spend Saturday on the job at an animal shelter.

“What girl doesn’t want to go to the wineries with her girlfriends in a limo on a summer day?” Carlino told The Post. “I just, for some reason, decided to work instead. I don’t know why.”
As her pals headed out, Carlino went to her job as a receptionist at the Animal Clinic of Hampton Bays.
She says she learned four of her best friends had died in Saturday’s limo crash only when she received a message on Facebook.

Brittney Schulman, 23, (top left), Lauren Baruch, 24, (top right) Amy Grabina, 23, (bottom left) and Stephanie Belli, 23, (bottom right) died in the crash.

“I’m still in shock. I’m numb,” Carlino said. “I’m all cried out for right now.”

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 Steve Romeo, the driver of the vehicle that crashed into the limo
Carlino said Lauren Baruch, one of the four killed in the crash, was like “a sister” to her.
“She was happy. Always had a smile on her face,” Carlino said of Baruch. “She always pushed me to be the best person that I could be.”
Carlino is hoping that accused drunken pickup-truck driver Steven Romeo faces charges.
“I want to be there and I want to look that man in the eye and I want him to know that not only did he kill my best friend, he killed a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a co-worker,” she said. “I hope he rots in prison.”
The Post