Comic Cop Comes to Vail
SpeakUp ReachOut hosts comedian Vinnie Montez to raise awareness about the importance of men’s mental health.
Boulder comedian Vinnie Montez came to Vail on Wednesday to break down the stigma around mental health in the best way he knows how — by opening up and cracking up.
Montez, a longtime cop and proud Mexican man who “wears his heart on his sleeve,” wasn’t always so open about his mental health, he said in an interview Wednesday.
During his first 10 years with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, he kept his head down and worked excessively, ignoring the impact of the continual exposure to trauma that comes with a career in law enforcement.
“Mental health wasn’t really at the forefront of everybody’s mind during that time,” Montez said. “You don’t really realize the different type of trauma you’re taking on, not acute (trauma), but over the course of a long time.”
He was forced to face the reality of his mental health after an incident that occurred late one night in 2008, when he was flagged down by a woman while driving in Boulder Canyon. Montez was off duty, but a young man had just crashed his car and he wasn’t breathing, the woman told him.
“He was having trouble breathing. He wasn’t conscious,” Montez recalled. “There was no cellphone coverage, so it was going to be a while before we got help to us.”
Montez immediately got to work trying to save the man’s life and kept at it until backup arrived. Despite their efforts, the young man breathed his last breaths that night.
“The supervisor on scene pulled me off of the scene and put me in his warm Tahoe,” Montez said. “And I just had a moment where I broke down, and I never had such emotion or feeling overcome me during an incident like this before. I really kind of hit a wall.”
After that night, Montez said he realized he needed to take a step back and spend some time looking inward. He started going to counseling and dabbling in comedy as an outlet to talk about his mental health.