Family Tragedy in Virginia Bus Crash

Four of the five victims in a bus crash in Virginia were members of the Doncev family from Massachusetts. They were traveling to a family wedding with a car full of desserts for the celebration. The wedding will continue on Sunday in South Carolina, serving as both a celebration and a time to mourn Dmitri and Ecaterina Doncev and their children, Emily and Mark, a relative shared on Saturday.

“A son, a father — the whole family — all who were dear to us,” expressed Carolina Bublik.

The Doncev family died early on Friday when a passenger bus crashed into vehicles that had slowed down due to road repairs on Interstate 95 in Stafford County, Virginia. A fifth person, a 25-year-old woman from Worcester, Massachusetts, died in an SUV, authorities reported. Several others were treated for injuries, with one individual in critical condition, though most were released from the hospital, stated Mary Washington Healthcare.

An investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board planned to speak with reporters about the investigation on Saturday.

The bus was operated by E&P Travel Inc., based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. The Virginia State Police identified the driver as Jing S. Dong, 48, from Staten Island, New York. Dmitri, 45, and Ecaterina, 44, emigrated from Moldova to the United States in 2008 and settled in Greenfield, Massachusetts, noted Bublik.

Dmitri worked as a nurse at Holyoke Medical Center while Ecaterina was a stylist who spent days preparing desserts for the family wedding, Bublik recalled.

Dmitri and his brother Iuri attempted to stay together while traveling in separate vehicles to South Carolina. “At some point, they ended up separated,” recounted Bublik. “Dmitri said, ‘You go ahead, I’ll catch up later.’ It was a huge shock when Iuri arrived at the house. Dmitri should have arrived around the same time. When his car didn’t appear and he didn’t answer the phone, that’s when the family started to panic.”