Teen is remembered as kind and intelligent BY MICHAEL ACKER Staff Writer Sara E. Dubinin SAYREVILLE - A borough resident who was among three teenagers injured in a recent car accident has died. Sara E. Dubinin, 19, had been a passenger in a Dodge Ram pickup truck when the vehicle ran off the road and struck a tree on Karcher Street at 11:48 a.m. Sept. 24. She was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where she succumbed to her injuries the following day. The driver of the pickup truck, Wade Kosty, and another passenger, Andrew Lardieri, both 18, were also transported by Medivac to Robert Wood Johnson with non-lifethreatening injuries. A police investigation into the accident is ongoing. Sara, who was studying at Middlesex County College, Edison, had worked day shifts as a hostess at the Colonial Diner in East Brunswick since August, according to Sasha Zea, manager of the Route 18 diner. Zea described Sara as professional and a good overall employee. "She was always really at work," Zea said. "She was the only one who could put away all of my bakery stuff in a timely manner. I just wish she was still here. She was just amazing. She was just so nice. … She was very humble. No matter what I said, she would always just take it with a grain of salt. If I corrected her on something, I never had to do it twice. She was a fast learner. "She would come in with her friends and order a BLT, no tomato, every day she worked here," Zea added. Karen Kartis, a server at the Colonial Diner, described Sara as beautiful, soft-spoken and kind. "She was awesome," Kartis said. "She was an asset to have here, as an employee with us and the customers. She was always pleasant and had a smile on her face. She was angelic. She was a wholesome girl. She was like Laura Ingalls [of 'Little House on the Prairie']. That innocence." Sara was quick to smile and her intelligence made her a highly capable young person, Kartis said. "She was one of those people who you knew was going to do something good with her life, make a change," Kartis said. "She was the type of person who if you only met her once, she touched you. This affected all of us. She touched everybody in such a short time." Sara was a graduate of Cardinal McCarrick High School in South Amboy. Jean Kline, who became principal of the high school during Sara's senior year, noted that many people attended Sara's funeral yesterday at Our Lady of Victories Church in Sayreville. "It was a beautiful tribute to Sara, and it was very tragic for her family and relatives and friends," Kline said. "Everyone who was there was touched very much by the tragedy of the situation and the sadness that we all felt. "She was a very lovely young woman," Kline said. "… It is a true tragedy. She was always a very pleasant and very focused young lady." Sara is survived by her parents, Victor and Elizabeth, of Sayreville, two brothers, Victor, of Bloomfield, and Ryan and his wife, Adrienne, of Nutley, and her grandfather, Wasily, and his wife, Svetlana, of Wanaque. Zea said that Sara's presence will be missed at the diner. "She had a very organized personality," Zea said. "She was not sloppy, lazy … she was not anything that you find in people. She was a diamond in the rough."