Nurse helps colleague stuck with flat tire

As a gravel bicycle racer and triathlete, Christopher Klein has fixed plenty of tires in a jiffy. The wound healing nurse with UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital is just as quick to help a teammate.

When his colleague Heather Borchardt, also a wound healing nurse, finished her shift and discovered her new car already had a flat tire, she called nurse manager Kathryn Glenn – who was in an afternoon meeting. Glenn handed the phone to Klein: “It’s for you.”

“I was like, ‘I’d be happy to help in any way I can,’” Klein said. “That’s a bummer, because mentally, she was probably ready to get in her car and head home.”

He grabbed his jacket and was soon in the parking garage, helping Borchardt find her spare tire.

“It was chilly that day, standing out there in the parking garage,” Borchardt said. “Chris was nice enough to help me.”

With the doughnut-style spare and the owner’s manual, Klein figured out how to set up the jack. After jacking up the car, then lowering it back to loosen the lug nuts, he soon swapped the flat for the spare.

“At least once a year, I change a bicycle flat tire,” he said with a grin. “It’s a little easier to pick up a bike than it is a car.”

Borchardt, who lives in metro Denver, said it probably would have taken an hour for her husband to get there. She added that Klein’s kindness was much appreciated.

“If it wasn’t for him, I would have been stuck there.”

Afterward, Klein got on his bicycle and rode home; that’s how he commutes most days. In July, he raced in the Foco Fondo Triple Dog Dare You 100 Mile, finishing 101 miles in 7 hours, 35 minutes. He also races in the UCHealth-sponsored Grassroots Gravel in Pueblo.

Klein joined UCHealth in 2007. He said working with outpatients in wound healing offers an opportunity to care for the same patients, frequently over months or years.

“A lot of the people we work with, we really get to know quite well,” he said. “I really enjoy that. And this team is a really good team – providers, nurses and support staff.”

On his days off, he provides clinical instruction for nursing students with University of Northern Colorado.

“I enjoy teaching and working with students, connecting them with the system,” he said. “It’s been rewarding – you can do a lot of different things as a nurse.”

Glenn said Klein is a “solid, good person, he always acts with integrity.”

“Chris has a broad understanding of how things work in our department as well as the hospital as a whole,” she said. “His peers would describe him as calm, even-keeled and dependable.”