Linda Coulimore — a former Longmont police officer who was injured twice in the line of duty before becoming dependent on painkillers — was arrested Friday night on suspicion of stealing a pain-medication pump from the hospital room of an Iraq war veteran.

The story of Coulimore as told by her son and former husband is of a woman who for decades has wrestled with pain and painkillers.

Coulimore, 59, also had been an emergency medical technician and recently took nursing classes at Regis University. That is consistent with the police theory that the person who deftly detached the pump had medical training.

Weld County deputies arrested Coulimore at 10:40 p.m. Friday in her Mead home after she saw her picture in a newspaper and called police to give herself up, said Sonny Jackson, Denver police spokesman.

Coulimore was released from the Weld County Jail after her $25,000 bond was posted, said Weld County Undersheriff Margie Martinez.

The U.S. Marine at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center was unconscious when the woman detached the device filled with powerful narcotics Tuesday evening, Jackson said. The Marine, a police source said, had lost a limb in a war-related accident in Iraq.

In a statement released through the hospital, the serviceman, who wishes to remain anonymous, thanked the police for their quick work.

Surveillance photos of a woman in a hallway of Presbyterian/St. Luke’s were distributed through the media to assist the investigation.

Family members said Coulimore had been regularly using strong painkillers since 1966, when she was thrown out of a car during an accident in Longmont.

Her knee was blown out during the crash, and doctors used a metal implant to repair the injury, said Scotty Coulimore, Coulimore’s ex-husband and a retired Colorado State Patrol trooper.

She became an emergency medical technician for Flight for Life and once saved the life of a 3-year-old drowning victim, said her son, Lance Coulimore.

In the early 1980s, Coulimore joined the Longmont Police Department. Longmont Cmdr. Timothy Lewis confirmed Coulimore had been on the force.

History of injuries

Coulimore suffered additional injuries on a police call when a leopard, held in a home basement, attacked her.

She received a rabies shot and took more pain medications, Scotty Coulimore said.

She also received care from a police psychologist following the attack, he said.

In early ’90s, three people were killed in a double murder-suicide in Longmont. As Coulimore was helping to put one of the victims in an ambulance, she slipped on ice and hurt her lower back.

Not wanting male police officers to think she was weak, she kept working the scene despite excruciating pain, Scotty Coulimore said.

But she was seriously injured. Doctors performed hip replacement surgery and fused four vertebrae in Coulimore’s lower back, her former husband said.

Coulimore returned to limited duty after the injury and, Scotty Coulimore said, he remembers her taking powerful prescription pain pills on a daily basis.

Doctors eventually inserted a permanent pump into her abdomen and regularly injected painkillers into her spine, he said.

Hobbled by the injuries and suffering from constant pain, she was let go by the Longmont department about 1998, family members say.

Coulimore received a $220,000 workers’ compensation settlement from the city, her former husband said.

Son: Photos aren’t mom

Lance Coulimore said his mother was a police officer for 16 years and had hoped to remain on the force in some capacity at least another four years so she could retire and get full medical and retirement benefits.

Coulimore got Social Security benefits and received slightly less than $600 a month for medical treatment and medications, Lance Coulimore said. Her son said she currently has five drug prescriptions.

After leaving the police force, she applied 26 times for other police, probation, dispatcher and Longmont city jobs but was never hired, Lance Coulimore said.

The past four years she has graded standardized college entrance examinations part time and was set to start grading more tests Monday, he said.

Shortly after Coulimore left the Longmont police force, Lance Coulimore said he was driving with her when their car was rear-ended and his mother suffered more painful injuries.

Lance Coulimore said he has seen the surveillance pictures of the woman at the hospital, and he thinks it isn’t his mother.

“She walks with a hunched back and sort of waddles because both of her hips were replaced,” he said. “She never wears her hair in a bundle.”

Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com