Jennifer Nay still remembers the moment she went outside her pizzeria and saw a vehicle that had just barreled through the nearby storefront of Hawaii Nail & Spa in Deer Park one year ago Saturday.

"It looked like a mini war zone," Nay recalled last week from behind the counter at Juventus Pizza Ristorante, just two buildings away from the crash. "Unfortunately, there was a lot of screaming, crying ... They were bringing bodies out. They were lining up people that didn’t make it on the side in front of the liquor store. These are people I know, I recognize their faces."

She remembers first responders unsuccessfully trying to resuscitate one victim of the crash, an image that has stuck with her since.

"They just put her alongside the other people that didn’t make it and you see the white blanket get put over," Nay recalled. "It was just terrible."

The Deer Park nail salon crash on June 28, 2024, left four dead, several others injured and traumatized countless community members, including Nay, who said they are still looking over their shoulders, bracing themselves for the next out-of-control vehicle they worry could strike as they step off a curb or sit down at a restaurant’s window seat.

Multiple victims filed civil suits against Steven Schwally — the alleged drunken driver who drove his 2020 Chevrolet Traverse 78 mph through the salon. They are expected to begin giving depositions in September as part of a consolidated trial process that will likely last several years, attorneys told Newsday.

The anniversary of the crash can be "retraumatizing" for those directly involved, those who witnessed it and even folks who read or heard about it, said Michele Lucero, administrative director of behavioral health at Mount Sinai South Nassau.

"We’re reexperiencing it a little bit," said Lucero, a licensed psychologist with expertise in post-traumatic stress disorder and secondary trauma. "It opens up an old wound."

A year later, Hawaii Nail & Spa remains boarded up with plywood.

Three days after the crash, hundreds of community members poured into the shopping center parking lot to honor the four dead — salon co-owner Jiancai "Ken" Chen, off-duty NYPD Officer Emilia Rennhack, and salon workers Yan "Jenny" Xu and Meizi Zhang — and the nine injured, including salon co-owner Wenjun Cheng — Chen’s widow — as well as a 12-year-old girl.

On Wednesday, dozens of handwritten messages adorned the plywood covering. Some looked to be recently written, including the messages "Sleep In Peace Jenny & Ken" and "Thank You For Your Service Officer," while others, such as the message "You will be missed RIP," were faded.

"Every time I come here I say a prayer for all the people who lost their lives," said longtime Deer Park resident Terry Filardi last week before heading into Stants to purchase a bottle of wine. She referred to Schwally’s alleged drunken driving crash as "sickening" and "just a sin" as she stood a few feet away from another handwritten message that reads: "Stop Driving Drunk!!!!"

"Grief is bad enough in a vacuum, but when you add drunken driving ... you’re adding senselessness and something that is profoundly avoidable," Lucero said.

Nay misses her conversations with Chen, who related to her struggles of keeping her business afloat. Chen and his wife, who Nay said "had to learn how to walk again" after the crash, as well as other salon employees frequented her shop for a bite to eat.

"It’s sad, and it didn’t have to happen for any of those people working hard just like ourselves here," the pizzeria owner said. "It’s something that you never expect."

Now, she and her regular customers are much more mindful of how fragile the pizzeria's glass storefront is, not unlike the one Schwally allegedly shattered two buildings away last year.

"Our mailman, since that happened, he purposely parks in front when he comes in to grab a slice," Nay said. "His logic is ‘God forbid a car decides to come in here, at least they’ll hit my truck.’ Some of us have PTSD a little bit. ‘Should I be aware of the window?’ It’s really sad, but we’re in that mentality in the community here."

Drunken driving crashes leave community members questioning their "own safety out in the world," Lucero said. But their hypervigilance, she said, will likely "fade" over time among "the overwhelming majority of people."

"I couldn’t tell you when ... it depends on so many individual factors," Lucero said.

Like many in Deer Park, Vickie DiBenedetto said she feels "so bad for the owners" of the salon "and the people that died." But there is someone else with whom she empathizes.

"Believe it or not, I also feel bad for that driver," DiBenedetto, 69, of Deer Park, said of Schwally.

The alleged drunken driver served in the Marines and had been residing in hotels for more than a year prior to the crash, Newsday previously reported.

"That driver was homeless, that driver was a veteran," DiBenedetto said. "I feel like he was maybe overlooked, uncared for ... What did he have? Nothing."

When asked if she forgives Schwally, DiBenedetto referred to her faith: "Only God really can forgive him."

Others could eventually share DiBenedetto's sentiment.

"I absolutely do believe that a subset of people ... are going to connect to the idea that this ruins his life too," Lucero said, referring to Schwally.

On Aug. 1, Schwally pleaded not guilty to four counts of second-degree murder, plus a litany of other charges, including first- and second-degree vehicular manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide and driving while intoxicated. His defense attorney, Christopher J. Cassar, filed a motion in May to have the murder charges dropped, Newsday previously reported.

Cassar did not return telephone messages Newsday left at his office.

Throughout the past year, multiple survivors of the crash, including Cheng, filed civil suits against Schwally, as well as Stants Liquors, where prosecutors allege Schwally purchased two 375-milliliter bottles of Montebello Long Island Iced Tea Cocktail less than six hours prior to the crash, and Young Fang LLC, which owns the strip mall.

Employees at Stants declined to speak with a Newsday reporter Wednesday.

A defense attorney representing Young Fang did not immediately respond to messages Wednesday.

The different civil suits are now "all one large lawsuit," said Edward Andrea, the attorney who filed a suit on behalf of a pair of crash victims, mother and daughter Ana and Carol Garcia, who are "still suffering from their injuries."

Combining the cases establishes "judicial equity," and ensures "multiple judges aren’t deliberating on the same facts," Andrea said. He added that one consolidated civil case also means that "considering what everybody’s gone through ... my clients don’t have to go through the story four different times."

Some plaintiffs, including Nicole Miele, the first to file a lawsuit, are also suing Hawaii Nail & Spa for not having adequate safety barriers protecting the shop. She is still recovering from injuries suffered in the collision, including a cerebral hemorrhage, a skull fracture, five fractured ribs and facial lacerations, according to her attorney, Joseph Dell.

"This is one event, all different people injured, maybe different theories or different defendants, but it’s all emanating from a single event," said Dell. 

Following a hearing in state Supreme Court in Riverhead on Tuesday, a discovery schedule has been set for pre-trial joint depositions, Andrea said. But a possible trial, he added, remains years away.

"Families, survivors, friends, community members, first responders, all the people that had to experience this, they want justice," Lucero said. "You have a prolonged legal proceeding, so justice is delayed, and it’s hard to grapple with that."