Angelica Dhondup.Photo: Go Fund Me
A Utah newlywed was killed in a head-on car crash in Utah just hours after she tied the knot with her high school sweetheart, her family said.
Angelica Dhondup, 26, married Tenzing, her longtime love, in a ceremony on Friday that was “filled with family and laughter,” family members wrote on aGoFundMe page.
Shortly after, the bride and a 20-year-old cousin headed home to drop off wedding presents. They were on their way back to the party, less than a mile away, when tragedy truck, her best friend Tayler Craft told NBC affiliateKSL.
As Dhondup’s car drove northbound on I-15, a pick-up truck entered the road driving south just after 1 a.m., and collided with the newlywed’s car head-on,KSL reported, citing the Utah Highway Patrol, who did not immediately return PEOPLE’s request for comment.
“She didn’t survive. She hadn’t even been married a full 24 hours and is leaving behind a widowed husband, 2 young handsome sons and a daughter she was a week away from adopting,” family members wrote on the GoFundMe page. “This has been so unreal.”
The cousin driving in the car with Dhondup survived, and was released from the hospital Saturday afternoon, KSL reported.
“She can’t even go to her honeymoon. She can’t even come home to her kids. To think about what he did to somebody on their wedding night, when she just got married five hours ago,” Craft said. “I love her so much and it makes me so sad. She’s such a good person, she’s such a good mom.”
KSL said police identified the driver of the pick-up truck as 36-year-old Manaure Gonzalez-Rea. Police reportedly said that after a motorist stopped at the scene of the accident to help with traffic control, Gonzalez-Rea stole the motorist’s car and fled the scene.
He was eventually stopped and arrested on investigation of DUI, reckless driving, theft of a vehicle, fleeing the scene of a death, and vehicular homicide, the outlet reported.Court recordsfor Gonzalez-Rea confirm the charges, but do not list an attorney.
“They got to say their ‘I dos,’ but they didn’t get to live on for everything else,” Craft told KSL. “They had a whole life planned out together and he just cut it short… Anything could come at any time. Hold your family members close.”
The GoFundMe page has raised more than $11,000 to help with funeral expenses, rent and other necessities for Tenzing and Dhondup’s children.
The page also offered a plea in light of Gonzalez-Rea’s investigation of DUI charge: “Please don’t drink [and] drive.”
source: people.com
