One of the more surreal twists in the Dianna Russini saga came when — days after the NFL journalist resigned from the New York Times over photographs we published showing her holding hands with New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel — she was involved in a dramatic rescue of an elderly man who’d got in a scary car accident.
But, like almost everything in the tale of Russini and Vrabel, things were not as simple as that.
On April 17, Page Six got a tip that there had been a crash two days earlier in Wyckoff, New Jersey, not far from Russini’s home, and that not only had she been on the scene, but she had heroically asked a bystander to hoist her onto an overturned Jeep, whereupon she had opened the door and helped the stricken driver and his helpless dog to safety.
Local cops confirmed to us that bystanders had indeed helped with the rescue before officers arrived on the scene.
When we ran the tipster’s account by a source familiar with the incident, they confirmed her story — including the detail that she climbed onto the vehicle with the help of a passerby to rescue the driver — adding that Russini had been driving with her mother and kids when the accident happened right in front of them.
But… then a second tipster reached us. And they told a strikingly different story.
After we confirmed through public records that the second tipster was who they claimed to be — a fellow resident of Northern New Jersey — we interviewed them about the crash.
That tipster said that — while Russini had indeed come into the street to help with the crash — it was in fact the tipster’s husband, not Russini, who had freed the driver and his dog by ripping open the canvas roof of the Jeep. The tipster added that Russini had merely held the dog’s leash after the pet had been released from the wreckage. And she insisted that Russini most certainly had not scaled the car. (Sadly the alleged man of the hour declined to speak with us).
In search of the truth, the Post dispatched a reporter to the scene to see if we could finally suss out which version of events was the correct one, but we couldn’t turn up any more details.
Just another confounding footnote in the epic that is Vrabelgate!
