SEQUIM — When Dungeness Valley Lutheran Church secretary Beth Reinertsen needed to take time off Tuesday to visit a critically ill friend in Bremerton, parishioner Doreen Sonnenfeld didn’t blink an eye before offering to fill in for the day.
The gesture was appreciated, but hardly a surprise to Reinertsen — or anyone who experienced Sonnenfeld’s consummate generosity.
The real shock came Wednesday, when church members learned that Mrs. Sonnenfeld had been killed in a fiery crash that morning on U.S. Highway 101 near Discovery Bay.
“I think first thing that came to our minds was like, ‘How can we go on without her?”‘ Reinertsen said Thursday, in shock and trying to cope with the loss of a vibrant and loving woman who many say virtually lived her life for others.
Investigators from the State Patrol said Sonnenfeld, 73, probably died instantly after her Subaru Legacy was struck by a semi truck that crossed the centerline and forced her car into an embankment.
Her husband, 78-year-old Delbert Sonnenfeld, was a passenger in the Subaru.
He was immediately airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where his condition Thursday was listed as satisfactory.
Northbound truck
A 33-year-old Lake Stevens man, Michael Rutkowski, was driving the empty semi northbound when the wreck happened just before 8 a.m.
Rutkowski was only slightly injured, troopers said.
State Patrol investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the crash.
Neighbors, fellow parishioners and friends of Mrs. Sonnenfeld are trying to figure out how something so horrific could happen to someone so profoundly benevolent.
