{"id":2450660,"date":"2019-11-02T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=315442"},"modified":"2019-11-02T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T06:00:00","slug":"longtime-eagle-county-paramedic-pete-brandes-to-call-it-a-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/longtime-eagle-county-paramedic-pete-brandes-to-call-it-a-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime Eagle County paramedic Pete Brandes to call it a career"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Pete Brandes, right, has helped look after the great and near great. President Bill Clinton and his family were in town early in Clinton’s first term as president.<\/strong>
Special to the Daily<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

EAGLE \u2014 It\u2019s 5 a.m., and quiet as Pete Brandes sips his first cup of coffee and reads the news, his daily routine for more than three decades.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s chief operating officer for Eagle County Paramedic Services, so quiet moments don\u2019t last long. His radio soon crackles with a car off Piney Road, a cardiac arrest in Edwards, a friend or friend\u2019s son in Eagle.<\/p>\n

In more than 5,200 calls each year, local paramedics have to arrive at the scene, size up the situation and carve out an intimate relationship with their patients \u2014 all in a few precious moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people call 911 it\u2019s because they aren\u2019t equipped to deal with what happened,\u201d Brandes said. \u201cWe\u2019re answering the question, \u2018What happened today that made you call an ambulance?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Technology helps, but it\u2019s no substitute for the gift of getting people to confide in the EMT on the scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not all about the medicine. We must develop a close personal relationship with someone, and do it in three minutes,\u201d Brandes said.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s calling it a career next year.<\/p>\n

Life and death have not changed<\/p>\n

While the life and death scenarios have not changed, life in the Vail Valley has. In fact, it was the Eagle River Valley for centuries, before marketing departments decided to call it something else.<\/p>\n

Brandes was 20 years old when he migrated to Eagle in 1976, then home to 800 souls. He landed a bartender job when he turned 21 and traveled and worked construction in the summers. The only Vail restaurants open in the offseason were McDonald\u2019s and Kentucky Fried Chicken in Vail Village.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demographic has followed me. When I moved here, everyone was my age. Now, everyone is still my age,\u201d Brandes said.<\/p>\n

He started down the paramedic road while driving a mixer truck with Flatirons Construction. One of Flatirons\u2019 corporate overlords declared that one of the crew should have some first aid training, and everyone pointed to Brandes.<\/p>\n

The all-volunteer Eagle Community Ambulance Association in the lower valley recruited him, and he was on his way. Ken Wilson was chief back then. Before that, Bob Shelton ran the local funeral home in Eagle, and his hearse served as the ambulance, because, Brandes explains, a hearse and ambulance are roughly the same shape.<\/p>\n

Working on friends and neighbors<\/p>\n

Brandes was supposed to be an engineer, but that didn\u2019t take. He earned his EMT certification and spent a couple of years in the 1980s hauling skiers off Vail Mountain and taking them to the hospital. He met his wife, Jane, when she was a nurse in Vail and he was working the ambulance. He migrated back downvalley for an EMT job.<\/p>\n

Back then, ambulance crews ran about 60 or 70 calls a year. Brandes knew many of his patients. It took a toll.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got sick of working on my neighbors and friends,\u201d Brandes said. \u201cIt\u2019s tough doing CPR on someone you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s better now<\/p>\n

Ambulances have changed from Shelton\u2019s hearse\/ambulance. They\u2019re now rolling emergency rooms that cost $250,000 each and carry highly trained two-person crews and an amazing array of life-saving gear.<\/p>\n

Six years ago, the Vail Valley\u2019s two ambulance districts merged. It\u2019s better, Brandes said. Now Eagle County\u2019s population is creeping toward 53,000, according to U.S. Census estimates. \u201cA great big small town,\u201d Brandes calls it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowth has pushed us to become more professional, more organized. It\u2019s better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Chip Woodland, an ER doctor at Vail Health, has worked with Brandes for 28 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe both were in the trenches at the same time,\u201d Woodland said. \u201cIf an ambulance with a patient under Pete\u2019s care was headed to the ER, we knew that patient was getting the very best care. He\u2019s going to have a lasting positive impact on the quality of emergency medical health care here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do the job, don\u2019t be the job<\/p>\n

Brandes keeps track of 65 employees and 13 ambulances for a district that spans 1,692 square miles. In addition to 911 calls, the district transports more than 500 critically ill and injured patients to Denver hospitals each year. Time has not made that drive any easier.<\/p>\n

\u201cDenver can seem awfully far away when you have to transport a critically ill or injured patient in those conditions,\u201d Brandes said. \u201cFortunately, we have some of the best-trained and highest-quality crews of any county this size in the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of jobs, Brandes did most of the hiring until a couple of years ago, as he began to relinquish the reins. He looks for a sense of responsibility, common sense and the intelligence to do what\u2019s best for the patient when they\u2019re on the scene. They can discuss details later.<\/p>\n

That personnel philosophy \u2014 \u201cThe best way not to have a problem is not to hire one\u201d \u2014 usually works, Brandes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can leave the job and no one notices, I\u2019ll have done well,\u201d Brandes said.<\/p>\n

Eagle County Ambulance District CEO Chris Montera knows he\u2019ll have large shoes to fill once Brandes retires. \u201cWe hope we can find someone with the same professional experience and work ethic,\u201d he said. \u201cIt won\u2019t be easy. A guy like Pete doesn\u2019t come along very often.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gets the question all the time, \u201cWhat are you going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI could have retired 20 years ago and not get all done that I want to do,\u201d Brandes said.<\/p>\n

For more information about the Eagle County Paramedic Services District, visit http:\/\/www.eaglecounty<\/a> paramedics.com.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pete Brandes, right, has helped look after the great and near great. President Bill Clinton and his family were in town early in Clinton’s first term as president.Special to the Daily EAGLE \u2014 It\u2019s 5 a.m., and quiet as Pete Brandes sips his first cup of coffee and reads the news, his daily routine for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 09:46:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}