Wine tour ends in carnage after ‘drunk’ driver slams into limo
A tour of North Fork wineries ended in carnage Saturday, when a hit-and-run drunk driver slammed into a limousine full of young women on Route 48 in Cutchogue, cops said.
Four of the women were killed in the crash, and their four friends and the limo’s driver were seriously injured in the 5:15 p.m. accident.
All eight women were ages 23 and 24, and — in a horrible irony — had taken a limousine so that they could drink safely as they toured the area’s wineries, officials said.
Local police initially indicated that the victims may have been bridesmaids out on a bachelorette jaunt to area vineyards.
But a family member of one of the surviving women told The Post at Peconic Bay Medical Center that the pals were not part of a wedding party, and were simply good friends who had hired a limo so that they could drink responsibly.
“They had to die instantly,” eyewitness Ted Webb, 76, of Orient, NY, told Newsday of the tragic victims.
“They looked like they were in a state of shock,” Webb said of the surviving victims.
“They weren’t screaming or shouting,” he said. “They’re sitting in the back and they saw what happened directly in front of them.”
The victims’ black Lincoln had just turned onto a median to make a U-turn onto the westbound side of the highway when it was struck broadside by a red pickup truck with so much force that the limo was nearly severed in half.
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