DES PERES • They were returning home after a night out of dinner and bowling - five Indian twenty-somethings having fun in All-American fashion.

Their lives bridged two worlds, the traditional and modern. They pursued jobs and education in the United States. But their families mostly remained back in India. One couple out that night planned to marry in May - a traditional marriage arranged by their families thousands of miles away.

They were headed home to Nitesh Adusumilli's place in Ballwin. But as they turned onto Dougherty Ferry Road early Saturday morning, their car was struck by an off-duty police officer driving the wrong way, police said.

Four in Adusumilli's car died. Adusumilli, 27, was listed in serious condition Sunday at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur. He was aware, recognizing faces, but visitors were warned not to disclose details of the auto accident, said Suren Pathuri, president of the Telugu Association of St. Louis, a group for speakers of the Indian dialect.

They worried he could not handle the shock of knowing his fiancée and three friends had died.

"For now we are telling him he fell down a staircase," Pathuri said.

Several members of the Indian community in St. Louis gathered at the hospital Sunday, stand-ins for families in India struggling to understand what had happened. They tried to arrange for emergency visas for Adusumilli's parents to visit. They made plans for transferring bodies back to families in India.

"They send them here for education. And then something like this happens," Hema Patel, president of the India Association of St. Louis, said at the hospital. "I can't even imagine what they are going through."

The accident occurred at 1:45 a.m. Saturday at the intersection of Dougherty Ferry and Des Peres Road. A Mitsubishi Eclipse driven by Christine L. Miller, 41, of Kirkwood, was traveling the wrong way in the westbound lanes of Dougherty Ferry, the state Highway Patrol said. The roadway there is five lanes wide, plus room for shoulders. Adusumilli's Honda Accord was making a right-hand turn from Des Peres Road.

The patrol's investigation was continuing, and charges could be filed later this week, a spokesman said. Authorities said Miller may been drinking before the crash.

Miller, a 12-year veteran of Sunset Hills police, was listed in critical condition Sunday. No one responded at her home Sunday afternoon. Sunset Hills police declined comment.

The victims in the crash included three graduate students studying technology at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill.: Anusha Anumolu, 23; Prya Muppvarapu, 22; and Anitha Lakshmi Veerapaneni, 23.

They were roommates who also previously attended Oklahoma City University.

They were in the St. Louis area during the school's spring break. Classes resume today.

Also killed in the crash was Satya Chinta, 25, of Aurora, Ill., a cousin of Veerapaneni's.

Adusumilli had worked for several years as a database administrator for AMDOCS, a software and communications firm in Chesterfield, friends said.

The five young Indians had started the night with dinner at Ruchi Indian Cuisine in Creve Coeur, friends said. They then went to a nearby bowling alley.

Veerapaneni recently was engaged to Adusumilli, said her uncle Shailendra Veerapaneni, who traveled to the hospital from his home in St. Charles, Ill.

He said he last saw his niece two weeks earlier. He described her as a "very loving, very caring person who acted just like any other 23-year-old."

Shailendra Veerapaneni said the entire family could not believe she was gone. His own 11-year-old son, in denial that his cousin was dead, keeps calling him to ask when will they find her.

"I'm not able to answer my son now," Shailendra Veerapaneni said, looking down at his cell phone.