The funeral Friday for a Gallatin County sheriff’s deputy who died on duty last weekend is expected to draw attendance from hundreds of officers from Montana and at least four other states. Gov. Steve Bullock ordered all flags be flown at half-staff tomorrow in honor of the deputy.
Thirty-one year-old Deputy Jake Allmendinger died last Oct. 19 while responding to a report of a stranded driver in the Bridger Mountains.
Sheriff Brian Gootkin says a long procession is expected to carry Allmendinger’s body to the funeral, passing through Main Street in Bozeman Friday morning.
"As of last night we had hundreds that had signed up already, from around the country."
The funeral service at the Commons in Bozeman is scheduled to start around 10 a.m., and is open to the public.
Allmendigner died while responding to a call for help. He and another deputy went out during a storm and at one point their vehicle started sliding backwards on the icy road. Allmendinger got out of the car and became trapped underneath it.
Sheriff Gootkin says Allmendiger was a great guy with a great sense of humor and was all about helping people. Gootkin says the incident is a sobering reminder that emergency responders are willing to risk everything to ensure public safety.
"What we ask the public is to think ahead of time. Don’t just think about yourself. Think about others, like emergency responders who have to put themselves at risk to go up and save your life because you put yourself at risk by not preparing or not checking the weather or just going up there to begin with. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming those people that were up there, at all. I’m just saying that if there’s anything we can learn from this; if we can have one incident where somebody says they checked the weather channel and they say, 'Oh, wow, we’ve got weather coming in, I’m not going camping, or I’m not going hiking.' That to me, that’s a win."
Allmendinger is survived by his parents, wife and three children.
Find more info on the procession and funeral here: http://www.gallatinmedia.org/
