By Hector Gutierrez
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
Copyright 2006 Denver Publishing Company
A Fort Collins paramedic racing to a call of a head-on crash that killed a motorist early Thursday arrived at the scene to learn the victim was her husband.
A firefighter from the Poudre Fire Authority intercepted Jennifer Stackler-Gould shortly after she jumped out of her ambulance with her partner at the accident scene on U.S. 287 about two miles north of Ted’s Place.
Stackler-Gould’s partner also recognized the truck involved in the wreck as belonging to Brian J. Gould, according to Gary Kimsey, Poudre Valley Hospital spokesman.
Brian Gould, 42, was an assistant fire chief for the volunteer fire department in the Glacier View mountain community, and he and his wife were paramedics for the Poudre Valley Hospital Ambulance Service.
“Jennifer was in the process of getting out of the ambulance and she wasn’t expecting this,” Kimsey said. “When the ambulance was dispatched we had no idea who it was, that it was Brian. The fireman and her partner stopped Jennifer because they didn’t want her to go to the scene.”
Even after Stackler-Gould learned her husband was the victim, her instincts as a paramedic to help kicked in and she wanted to assist, Kimsey said.
A second team of paramedics that also responded to the crash took charge trying to aid Gould, but he was pronounced dead at the scene, Kimsey said.
Stackler-Gould’s partner eventually drove her back to Poudre Valley Hospital.
Gould had finished his graveyard shift working out of the ambulance service’s east side station in Fort Collins and was heading home to the couple’s Glacier View home about 40 miles northwest of the city when the wreck occurred, Kimsey said.
The Colorado State Patrol said Gould was driving his 2004 Dodge Ram pickup about 6:40 a.m. northbound on the highway when his truck crossed the center line into the southbound lane. A 2005 Freightliner semitruck, which was heading south on U.S. 287, collided head-on with Gould’s truck, troopers said.
“I think Brian was just the kind of guy who enjoyed helping people and enjoyed helping his community that he was in,” said Jason Mantas, Poudre Fire Authority spokesman.
Sgt. Kevin Johnston, of the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Services Section, recalled working with Gould since the 1980s, tackling wildland fires, search and rescue operations, and dive water rescues.
“He was always very professional, pretty level-headed kind of guy, he was cool and calm during emergencies,” he said.