OLD BRIDGE – A lawyer said he intends to hold the owners of Martell's Tiki Bar in Point Pleasant Beach responsible for a traffic accident in Middlesex County that killed driver Ashley Chieco and seriously injured his client, Dana S. Corrar of Old Bridge.

“We have put Martell’s on notice we plan to pursue a claim,” attorney Paul Edestein said Friday. “We think there’s responsibility on the part of the business, both in serving this girl and for allowing her to leave in somebody else’s car.”

Corrar, 55, was on her way home from her nursing job in Ewing Township the evening of Aug. 16 when the car she was driving was struck head-on by a stolen SUV driven by Chieco, who police said had been drinking at the bar.

Chieco, 26, died from her injuries. Corrar suffered broken bones, has undergone three surgeries and remains hospitalized, Edelstein said.

Witnesses told police Chieco was driving the wrong way – north in a southbound lane of Route 18 – and swerving to avoid oncoming traffic before the violent collision with Corrar’s 2000 BMW 323.

Police said Chieco had been drinking with a friend at Martell's on the Boardwalk before stealing a 2011 Hyundai Tucson from a beach lot and attempting to drive nearly 70 miles to her home in Bergen County.

“How a bar – this is a huge establishment – how they cannot be prepared for a drunk driving scenario is beyond me,” Edelstein said Friday. “Bars have an obligation to stop serving somebody who is knowingly intoxicated. They certainly have an obligation to stop them from driving away in somebody else’s car.”

'Long road ahead'

Edelstein on Friday released a photo of Corrar taken in Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where she has been since the accident.

A grandmother of a 1-year-old boy, Corrar suffered bilateral fractures to her legs and ankles. She suffered multiple injuries to her ribs, a punctured lung and damage to her cervical area and spine, Edelstein said.

“She basically broke everything from the neck down,” Edelstein said. “Her legs are shattered. It will be more than a year before she will walk.”

Edelstein said Corrar might never be able to return to her job as a nurse in a senior citizen long-term care and rehabilitation facility. He said Corrar’s daughter dropped out of college in Philadelphia to move back home and care for her mother.

“She faces hundreds of thousands in medical bills that are accruing right now,” Edelstein said. “And hundreds of thousands in future medical bills.”

"She has an extremely long road ahead of her and will never be the same after this accident," Corrar's daughter, Amy, stated in an NJ.com post.

The investigation

Martell’s workers maintain the parking lot where Chieco stole the vehicle used in the crash, Edelstein said. Police told him the Hyundai belonged to a family spending the day on the beach.

Even though she didn’t drive to Point Pleasant Beach, Chieco climbed into the Hyundai Tucson, which was a similar year, make and model to a vehicle registered in her name, police said.

“Everything was the same, except the color,” said Det. Richard Tulko of the Old Bridge Police Department.

The keys had been left in the Tucson, Tulko said.

There's no evidence the owners of the Hyundai knew or met Chieco or gave her permission to drive their vehicle, Edelstein said. BEGIN RELATED LINKS

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NJ.com has made numerous attempts to speak with Martell's Tiki Bar managers and owners. A bar employee who answered the phone Friday night said the owners were not there and that managers were busy working and unavailable to speak with a reporter. Over the weekend, messages were left for Martell's Assistant General Manager Ed Brannagan, who did not return calls.

Investigators working for Edelstein’s law firm attempted to talk to employees at Martell’s bar and parking lots but were told to leave property, the attorney said.

The inside of the establishment is equipped with surveillance cameras, which Edelstein hopes will contain video showing Chieco in the hours before the accident. He said he is waiting for a criminal investigation to conclude before requesting copies of security tapes from police.

An autopsy was performed on Chieco but it was unclear whether the toxicology results will be made available to the public.

Edelstein said he plans to sue Martell’s on Corrar’s behalf for “multiple millions” and that Chieco will be named in the suit.

“If not, the bar will simply point the finger at an empty chair,” the attorney said.

If she had survived, Chieco would likely have been charged with DWI and assault, Edelstein said. “If (Corrar) hadn't survived, it would’ve been vehicular manslaughter,” he said.

'Always happy'

By all accounts an attractive, friendly and intelligent woman, Chieco appeared to have a promising future ahead of her.

She was a psychology professor at Bergen Community College and a crisis counselor at Hoboken University Medical Center. She was a supervisor of the mental health unit at the Mental Health Association in New York and had recently graduated from New Jersey City University with a master’s degree in psychology.

While a graduate student at New Jersey City University, Chieco maintained a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher and was inducted into the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society.

On the website ratemyprofessors.com, Chieco received glowing reviews from students who took her classes at BCC.

“She is AMAZING!” wrote one student reviewer in Nov. 2012. “She is really young, cool and down to earth. Very experienced in the field. Also very, very helpful!”

“She is absolutely beautiful inside and out!” wrote another last December. “She is very caring and explains things both relating to the textbook and real life scenarios! She is always there for her students and actually cares.”

Those posts and all references to Chieco on ratemyprofessors.com have been removed from the website.

When the accident occurred, Chieco was on her way home to Wood-Ridge to help her father, Joe, celebrate his 58th birthday.

On Saturday morning – eight days after the accident – Joe Chieco was mowing the front lawn at the modest, well-kept home he shared with his daughter and his wife, Sara.

He declined to comment.

“We’re not in the mood to talk right now,” Joe Chieco said.

Less than a mile away, a worker at Mills Bakery on Valley Boulevard – who lives two houses from the Chieco home – remembered friendly conversations with Ashley.

“She was a very nice girl,” said Maggie Mele, 16. “She was always happy, just an amazing person.”

Mele said she last saw Chieco one day before the accident, walking her small dog on a quiet street near her home.

“It was just a wave and a hello,” Mele said. “I feel awful.”

The accident stunned others close to Chieco and Corrar. Many have posted thoughts and wishes online.

"Ashley could have been anyone's friend. I never thought a friend of mine would be capable of doing something like this," wrote Christine Regal. "She lost 25 pounds and hadn't been out in a very long time. She did not drive down because she knew she was drinking that day and had a designated driver."

"Such a sad story," wrote another NJ.com commenter. "A young woman with so much promise, and just starting out in life. May you rest in peace, and your family find comfort in the joys you had while with them. For Dana and her family, heal quickly."

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