{"id":248977,"date":"2026-05-30T20:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/248977\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T20:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:50:09","slug":"relative-says-4-of-5-virginia-bus-crash-victims-were-traveling-to-a-family-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/248977\/","title":{"rendered":"Relative says 4 of 5 Virginia bus crash victims were traveling to a family wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A family of four from Massachusetts who were killed when a bus crashed into multiple vehicles in Virginia were traveling to a wedding with a carload of homemade desserts for the celebration.<\/p>\n<p>The family wedding will go forward Sunday in South Carolina, but it also will be a time to mourn the loss of Dmitri and Ecaterina Doncev and their two children, Emily and Mark, a relative said Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A son, a father \u2014 the whole family \u2014 everyone that has been dear to us,&#8221; Carolina Bublik said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/nation\/bus-crashes-into-cars-on-virginia-interstate-killing-5-people-state-police-say\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">READ MORE: Bus crashes into cars on Virginia interstate, killing 5 people, state police say\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Doncev family died early Friday when a motorcoach crashed into vehicles that had slowed down for a work zone on Interstate 95 in Stafford County, Virginia. A fifth person, a 25-year-old female from Worcester, Massachusetts, died in an SUV, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>More people were treated for injuries, including one who was in critical condition, though most were discharged from the hospital, Mary Washington Healthcare said.<\/p>\n<p>A member of the National Transportation Safety Board planned to speak to reporters about the crash investigation Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The bus was operated by E&amp;P Travel Inc., based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. Virginia State Police identified the driver as Jing S. Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York.<\/p>\n<p>Dmitri, 45, and Ecaterina, 44, emigrated to the U.S. from Moldova in 2008 and settled in Greenfield, Massachusetts, Bublik said.<\/p>\n<p>Dmitri was a nurse who worked at Holyoke Medical Center. Ecaterina was a hair stylist who spent days making desserts for the family wedding, Bublik said.<\/p>\n<p>Dmitri and brother Iuri tried to stay together while traveling in separate vehicles to South Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At some point they ended up getting separated,&#8221; Bublik said. &#8220;Dmitri said, &#8216;You go ahead. I&#8217;ll catch up later.&#8217; It was a big shock when Iuri arrived at the house. Dmitri should have arrived around the same time. When his car did not show up, and he wasn&#8217;t picking up the phone \u2014 that&#8217;s when the family started panicking.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n                    A free press is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy.\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"invite_body\">\n                    Support trusted journalism and civil dialogue.\n                <\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/give.newshour.org\/page\/88646\/donate\/1?ea.tracking.id=pbs_news_sept_2025_article&amp;supporter.appealCode=N2509AW1000100\" class=\"donation-link ga-click-funding ga-click-ender-funding\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    Donate now<\/p>\n<p>                <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A family of four from Massachusetts who were killed when a bus crashed into multiple vehicles in Virginia&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-248977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}