Repeat DWI driver denied role in fatal

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A repeat drunk driver faces vehicular homicide charges after police say he crashed into a pregnant woman, whose baby later died.

From the moment police arrive on the scene in June near Las Vegas, NM, Ramon Hernandez, a 4-time drunk driver, is only worried about himself.

On a police dashcam you can hear the officers talking to him.

Officer: How you doing?
Hernandez: Passenger.
Officer: You were the passenger of this vehicle?

He doesn't deny he's drunk, but insists he wasn't driving. Just feet away Aileen Smith and her husband Zach are praying.

“My water broke like instantly,” Smith told KRQE News 13 in a phone interview Thursday.

She was seven months pregnant, on the video you can hear her moaning in pain while Hernandez sits on the side of the unaffected.

“Okay, honey. The medics are here sweetheart,” Zach Smith says trying to comfort his wife when the ambulance arrived.

Doctor’s did an emergency c-section, but little Dimitri's body shut down just one minute after he was born.

Smith said as she held his lifeless body she though of all the people who had supported her through a pregnancy of ups and downs, “They are like don't worry it will all be worth it when you hold that baby. That was really what we held on to in our pregnancy. In that moment of holding Dimitri we had that moment of this is not what it is supposed to be like.”

Detectives later found a passenger who ran from the scene who placed Hernandez in the driver seat.

State Police say officers at the scene were focused on what was most important right then.

“We have a pregnant woman in the vehicle so that obviously a big priority for the officers, let's get her taken care of,” Lt. Robert McDonald said.

He says Hernandez had no chance of getting away with his lie. Hernandez, who is an illegal immigrant, is now charged with vehicular homicide, that's because Dimitri did survive for that one minute outside the womb.

The Smiths are now using their son's life, to push for tougher DWI laws . The Colorado Springs couple was heading to their baby shower in San Diego when the crash happened.