Chris Hickey served on Broomfield’s Special Operations Motorcycle Unit for many years. In 2008, when a fellow officer got assigned patrol for the eighth Fourth of July in a row, Chris offered to trade shifts so his colleague could spend the holiday with his family. Riding home from work on his motorcycle the evening before his Independence Day patrol, Hickey was involved in an accident with a commercial vehicle. The collision broke Chris’s back, both tibias, his femur, his hand and much more. The crash traumatically injured his brain and caused significant hearing loss. Chris underwent multiple surgeries and two and a half years of intense physical and occupational therapy.
Eventually, Hickey’s allotted time of paid recovery ran out, and his career with the Broomfield Police Department (BPD) came to an unwanted end. Unbeknownst to his superiors, Chris’s medical retirement had still not been approved by the necessary outside agency. This officer, who had selflessly served his community and daily risked his own life while raising two beautiful daughters, now looked down the barrel of unemployment with no way to support his children. “The bottom fell out of my life,” Chris shares, “I thought I was going to lose everything.”
Then one day, the phone rang and the caring voice of the late Tom Deland broke through Chris’s nightmare. “How are you doing?” inquired the Chief. “I’m drowning, Tom. I’m financially drowning,” Chris admitted. Deland, one of the founders of the Broomfield Rotary Fire and Police Fund (BRFPF), gladly stepped in. Not only did they throw the Hickey family a financial lifeline until Chris could start working again, but it also opened the door for their eldest daughter, Katelyn, to attend DU with a partial scholarship.
“I thought I was going to lose everything.”
