‘It was a life well lived,’ mother says of son who died in crash
Driver faces vehicular homicide charge, ordered held in jail without bond
A judge on Tuesday ordered 24-year-old Dominic Friedlein of Santa Fe kept in jail without bond in connection with what police say was a DWI-related crash that left a passenger in his SUV dead and injured a woman and her 7-year-old son in another vehicle.
Friedlein faces a vehicular homicide charge and two counts of great bodily harm stemming from the Sunday night collision.
Meanwhile, friends and family are mourning Stefan Siegmann, 29, who police say was riding in Friedlein’s Toyota 4Runner when it collided with an oncoming car on St. Francis Drive as Friedlein attempted to turn onto San Mateo Road.
Siegmann worked as a surgical technician and was a Santa Fe Ski Team assistant coach, friends and relatives said Tuesday.
“It was a life well lived,” said Lisa Siegmann of her son, who was born in Austria, his father’s native country.
While he was still a baby, his parents moved to Ruidoso because his mother wanted to be close to her home state of Texas and his father wanted to be near mountains.
“He was the most precious thing,” said his father, Hubert Siegmann.
The younger Siegmann went to New Mexico State University in Las Cruces for two years before moving to Corpus Christi, Texas, to attend nursing school.
He then began working as a surgical technician, most recently at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, friends and family said.
He had moved to Santa Fe in 2012 to help train Alpine ski racers with the Santa Fe Ski Team, for which his father has been head coach since 2010.
Richard Stump, a ski team board member, said the younger Siegmann coached Stump’s two sons, ages 14 and 12.
“He gave so much to these kids,” Stump said. “He taught them more than just being good skiers but also being good human beings.”
In his spare time, Siegmann was a nature photographer and had recently taken up fly fishing, said friend Travis Ingels.
Ingels described Siegmann as someone who “always had a smile on his face” and was “incredibly gracious.”
An arrest statement says Friedlein told police he was driving north on St. Francis Drive when he tried to make a left turn onto San Mateo, about a block from his apartment. Friedlein, who told police he had consumed three beers earlier at a local brewery, said he saw a southbound vehicle on St. Francis but thought he had enough time to complete the turn. Friedlein told investigators that the oncoming Chevrolet Cobalt sped up and struck his Toyota 4Runner on the right front side, causing it to overturn.
Pamela Reyes, who was driving the Cobalt, broke both wrists and three ribs in the crash, a court document states, and her son suffered a fractured eye socket and had internal bleeding in his nose. Friedlein and a female passenger in his SUV escaped serious injury, police said.
Friedlein’s lawyer, Roderick T. Frechette, did not return phone message from The New Mexican seeking comment after business hours Tuesday.
The Santa Fe Ski Team’s website says a celebration of Siegmann’s life is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at La Tienda at Eldorado, 7 Caliente Road.
Contact Uriel Garcia at 505-9863062 or ugarcia@sfnewmexican. com. Follow him on Twitter @ujohnnyg.