By Camerron Martin

Every single community throughout the world is made up of one piece. This piece is about the people who live in and run the communities, and Pueblo, Colorado, is no different than any other. Many individuals who hold the positions of city officials, local law enforcement, small business owners, and so many more make up what we represent here in Pueblo. However, what might fall under the radar as one of the more important figures in any community is the person who cares for those who pass away within it. For our community, that person is Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter.

Southeastern Nebraska native and Trinidad-raised Cotter graduated from Trinidad High School. They attended classes at Trinidad State Junior College before attending the Dallas Institute of Funeral Service in Mesquite, Texas. Cotter spent his early life working in his family’s funeral home in Trinidad until his youngest brother returned from the University of Northern Colorado. 

“Just too many mouths to feed on one small business, so we looked around with the help of our dad here in Pueblo, so we purchased that in 1989, and I’ve been in Pueblo since then,” Cotter shared. 

This local funeral home is Davis Mortuary, originally opened in 1905 in downtown Pueblo. Cotter said that he got involved in 1997, and significant changes in death care took place, which changed how the deceased were hauled from death scenes. That led to the current coroner at the time bringing the local funeral homes together to find a solution. 

Cotter stated, “We had coffee and doughnuts one morning, and the short story is that at the end of the day, I had the job of transporting the deceased.” 

Cotter would provide all transportation for the Pueblo Country Coroner’s Office thousands of times for the next 17 years. 

When it came time for the former county coroner, James Kramer, to retire after 37 years, it was up to Cotter and his team to figure out who would fill the position with little change. 

“At that time, all the investigators were part-timers. They had full-time jobs as police officers, and there were a couple of sheriff’s deputies and so on. We talked about it thoroughly, and it just wasn’t going to work for anyone else,” Cotter said. This led to Cotter running against the office’s most junior investigator during his first election, which he won in 2014. He has been the Pueblo County Coroner since and has been re-elected twice.

Taking on no simple job, Cotter went to work serving the community. He said his position is the only elected position in the state of Colorado that requires continued schooling, with new coroners being required to take part in about 40 hours of continuous education. 

“It takes a lot of training. I like to describe the coroner’s office as a skill position as opposed to an elected position,” he said.  

As the Chief Medical Legal Death Investigator for Pueblo County, Cotter oversees thousands of medical-legal death investigations. 

Cotter said, “[The job] really keeps you on your toes and that every day is very different from the last or the next.” It’s been a lot of work, made more difficult by a global pandemic.

COVID-19 brought a lot of major changes to communities everywhere. It is no surprise that it would also bring some big changes to this type of field. Cotter stated that, at first, there was a lot more paperwork involved when ruling over a death and that this paperwork had to be reported to the coroner’s office due to COVID-19, which was often passed to the state level. 

Cotter said they were charged with getting far more accurate data during the pandemic and that it could get overwhelming at times during the pandemic’s peak. However, now that things have started returning to a more level state for our community, the workload for Cotter’s office has calmed a little, and his office continues to abide by the new procedures set up during the pandemic. 

When CSU Pueblo The TODAY asked about the hardest part of his position, Cotter said no one thing is necessarily difficult, and the job is very situational. Having more than 60 years of experience with this type of work makes Cotter very experienced in all aspects of this position, which allows for a little bit of ease overall. 

But more importantly, Cotter said, “There is no single hardest part. One day, something is going to be very difficult, and the next day, because of the situation, it will be easy.” 

Cotter did state, however, that notifying the families of a deceased loved one is the most challenging duty because you can’t know what the reaction will be like. Cotter also shared that events with a more considerable impact are challenging. He was present in the aftermath of 9/11 for nine weeks and Hurricane Katrina for two weeks under the FEMA Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team.

Those seeking to contact Brain Cotter or the Pueblo County Coroner’s Office can do so at coroner@pueblocounty.us or by calling (719)-583-4673. 

The post Brian Cotter: The man who takes care of you after you’re gone first appeared on CSU-Pueblo Today.