Gary Catronio feels the pain personally when someone dies in a wrong-way wreck.
"Your heart drops out. It flashes back and you remember your night," Catronio said.
His night was Nov. 17, 2013. That's when he rushed to a wreck on the Sawgrass Expressway and learned his daughter, Marisa, and her best friend, Kaitlyn Ferrante, were killed by a wrong-way driver.
"You don't want to be standing in our shoes and thinking about what we think about every day when we wake up and every night when we put our head on a pillow," Catronio said.
That's why he's doing more than mourn. He's launched Marisa's Way, an effort to bring awareness to prevent wrong-way crashes.
He's encouraging the state to install flashing signs on more highway exit ramps. There is a pilot program underway already on the Sawgrass and Turnpike extensions. They light up as an alert to drivers and set off an alarm at the state's command center to notify troopers.
"Since we went up with the new detection devices on the highways in south Florida including the homestead turnpike, we've turned around 14 vehicles," Catronio said.
Local
There are no enhanced warnings along I-95 where the latest and deadliest wrong-way crash in years happened early Wednesday morning.
Five people were killed including the woman who police say was driving southbound in the northbound express lanes of I-95 near Miami Gardens Drive.
NBC 6 Investigators went one exit north of the crash site at Ives Dairy Road.
There are signs warning drivers including one that says no right turn onto the exit ramp and another that reminds drivers the exit ramp is a one-way. A short distance up is another sign warning drivers they are going the wrong way. Police haven't confirmed if that's where the 23-year old driver with California plates entered the highway, but a state study found intersections like that one are the most likely scenario for wrong way crashes.
The FDOT study published in April 2015 found 280 wrong way crashes that killed 75 people on Florida highways between 2009-2013. At least 71 of the crashes happened in Dade and Broward counties.
The study found drugs or alcohol were a factor in 45 percent of the state's wrong way crashes.
The wreck that killed Marisa Catronio and Kaitlyn Ferrante is one of those sad statistics. The car that hit them was going 90 miles per hour in the wrong direction. Kayla Mendoza had a blood alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit and before the crash tweeted '2 drunk 2 care'. She was sentenced to serve 24 years in prison.
As for Catronio, he's serving his life without his daughter, but he's hoping to save others.
"I think it can be prevented. We can slow this down and we can potentially stop it."
