She Was Electrocuted, Frozen in Place, and Fully Awake: A Story of Overcoming Adversity

You're gonna hear the story behind the path that would lead her into the mountains.

The story that led up to the moment when she uh stood frozen as a statue being electrocuted and couldn't do anything to stop it.

You're gonna hear the story, the path of what happened next.

And my friend, what happened next?

It changes everything.

That is what takes us from being as a story that entertains you and inspires you, to the story that motivates you and empowers you.

This is a story of self-discovery, of destruction, but of birth, of rebirth.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most impactful stories you will ever hear.

So, my friend, if you're up for a story today from a woman named Melissa Strong who will show us all what it means to be strong.

This is for you.

This isn't just about the accident.

It's about the road that led to it, but more importantly, the road that led away from it.

And of course, I hope you'll stick around to the very end.

I'm talking all the way till the end because, well, not only does her story continue to get better the more you hear, but waiting you at the end, I took the pleasure of turning her story into a full custom song that we are debuting here on the podcast today.

It was created with my custom music production service called Kalo Music.

So please be sure to stick around till the end to hear the debut of the song titled Found My Home with Bird in Jim.

With that said, this is episode 444 of Grit Grace and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and this is my incredible interview with none other than the absolutely amazing Melissa.

What's going on, my friend, and welcome back to Great Grace of Inspiration.

Today I have the absolute honor of being in the studio by none other than the infamous Melissa Strong.

Melissa, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_04: Hi, thanks for having me.

It's my pleasure.

SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.

Well, Melissa, I am so excited to get to dive into your story and to unpack it for my listeners today.

And where I would love to start is actually taken from the preface of your book, your book climbing through.

And in the preface, there was one quote that you had that I wanted to ask you to maybe just kind of unpack for me a little bit without obviously divulging all the whole story involved.

But in the preface, you say that you are one of the luckiest unlucky people you know.

And I was wondering, what do you mean when you say that?

SPEAKER_04: Even right from the accident, strangely enough, considered myself lucky because I lived.

You know, when you're faced with a life-threatening accident, I guess to back up a little bit, you know, I survived an electric accident in 2017 where I was connected to the electric chain accidentally picking up two live leads.

And I was connected for approximately like 20 seconds.

And for those 20 seconds, I was completely aware that first I made the mistake that I was not supposed to do by touching these leads when the machine was plugged in.

And then I was aware that I was trapped, that I had no way out, and that I was dying, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it to help myself.

So the fact that I got to live and try at life brings me to that sentence.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Wow.

Well, I felt like it was so powerful because it just kind of gives you a little glimpse into the type of person you are.

The type of person who can take something as traumatic as is what we're going to talk about today, and yet be able to see good out of it.

It says a lot about who you are.

SPEAKER_04: There were two roads for me, you know, and thankfully I had what it took to steer myself down the road that had the light and the grace opposed to the dark path the other direction.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, so I know one kind of aspect of your story is going to involve rock climbing, which I'm excited to get to.

But I guess I would love to kind of back up and and kind of go back before rock climbing for somebody to be as involved in that sport as you have been.

Have you always, like growing up, been somebody who was big athletic into outdoors or not?

SPEAKER_04: No, not really.

I mean, I did have, thankfully, the influence of my family kind of dragging me, you know, to do things that were as, you know, involved.

And I grew up in Massachusetts, so we have summers, you know, on the ocean.

So I was outdoorsy in a in a different way than what I am now, where you know, going to the beach and playing in the waves as a kid, and then learning how to ski with my family, you know, so they they did keep me active, but most often I preferred laying on the couch, watching TV, listening to music, going through back then it was magazines.

You know, I was just kind of like a lazy, unmotivated kid in a way.

And, you know, had my had had my worst dreaded class in school was always gym class.

Somehow I always managed to get C's in gym class.

And uh I just, you know, I just found it all like torturous.

I didn't want to run laps.

I I ducked when the volleyball was coming at me, you know, things like that.

I wasn't naturally, I never naturally felt coordinated or good at any of the sports, you know, that I ever tried in high school.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

I love it.

But a C in gym class, I'm going to assume from my own experience, remembering gym class.

A C in gym class makes me think, were you probably one who like failed to dress out on time or something like that?

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, often I forgot my uniform for sure.

You know, we went to a private Catholic school, and uh there were many days that I just looked in my locker and was completely gutted because I'm like, oh no, I I forgot my gym bag again.

And I'm sure, you know, Melissa as a teenager, there's no doubt that there was some attitude.

And if I didn't want to do something, I'm sure I could put a happy face on, like you learn as an adult sometimes to do.

Yeah, it was Miss Chang and I did not get along.

SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, I love it.

That's hysterical.

Now, so the type of school you went to was that like a situation where you stayed in the same school basically all the way up through like graduating?

SPEAKER_04: It was a pretty small school.

My family felt that the smallness and the discipline of an opus day school, which is uh a Catholic form of Catholicism, would be good for their kind of unruly teenage, younger.

Well, I wasn't even a teenager then, so I'm I uh you know started started young given them problems, but uh I entered at the at seventh grade and stayed there through graduation and uh our graduating class, there were 26 girls and we we all fit on the stage.

So, yes, we stayed in uh one school the whole time in one building.

SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, wow, okay, okay.

So now going from such a small high school, what did you have planned for for after as far as like college goes?

Or did you even have plans of college?

SPEAKER_04: I did, uh fortunate enough, my parents were able to help me pay for college.

So there was really no excuses for me to not go on.

And my, you know, I initially applied to university, well, I wanted to, University of Hawaii, and my mom said, no way, too far.

So you could see my path.

I just wanted to go, uh, you know, go to the beach, go have fun and keep living this charmed life, really.

But they limited my scheming to Catholic colleges.

And after some searching of who would take a budding young student with some C's on their resume, I found Loyola University in New Orleans.

And I just I really fell in love with the beauty of the campus and the kindness of the people.

You know, the South was a whole new world to me, being you know, from Massachusetts, and I was just enamored with it and uh landed at Loyola, New Orleans.

SPEAKER_02: Okay.

Wow, wow, amazing.

Now, how was college for you?

I think everybody kind of has their own unique experience, good or bad.

Was it a good experience for you?

SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, it was, I wouldn't say it was typical, like most things, I guess for me.

I Loyola is attracts a lot of local people.

So I instead of getting into the fraternities and sororities, I wound up meeting a great group of local kids who commuted to school and uh eventually, of course, started dating one and followed my passion of literature and studied literature and history.

I enjoyed the academic part of it.

It took me a minute.

I mean, I definitely, you know, went to a school in New Orleans when I was 17 years old.

And uh as soon as the drinking age down there back then was 18.

So, you know, I definitely blew off a little steam and then kind of felt focused more on studying for the following three years.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Well, that's good.

Everybody needs a break-in period, you know.

SPEAKER_04: It's hard not to do in New Orleans either, right?

SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, you're kind of you're you're kind of setting yourself up for something, you know?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

So now what then is the story behind how you would end up in Colorado, which I know is where a big part of our our kind of conversation's gonna take place.

SPEAKER_04: Well, after school, we still had some Catholic influence from our families happening, and the fellow I was dating to our parents that we were gonna go live in the mountains for a year and live together.

And then after that, we would start real life.

And he would go on, you know, to he wanted to be a lawyer, and I would, after he was done with school, then continue on my path of getting a master's and PhD in literature.

And so we just made that announcement, and our parents said, well, you know, put the pressure on basically for us not to go live together and to get married.

So we wound up getting married and then searching for where that one year in the mountain was going to be, where that mountain town was.

We had driven back and forth from New Orleans to Massachusetts a few times, and so we had checked out Asheville, North Carolina, and we've checked out like around the Smoky Mountains.

And I just, you know, how I looked at it back then is let's go to the real mountains, you know, out west.

And so we avoided Colorado specifically because he had been there and I had been there to ski with my family.

So we're like, let's let's look at everything else.

And we drove up, packed up the forerunner, left Massachusetts, and stopped.

One of our first stops was Whitefish, Montana, and he he loved it.

And uh, for me, back in that was 1996, so back then it was really remote, and I just felt like it was a little too remote for me.

We kept going and we went into Washington and then back kind of down into Oregon and headed back east.

And I really liked Ben to Oregon, and he voted veto that.

And so I'm like, well, why don't we just go to Colorado?

And so we uh went to Colorado and drove through Fort Collins and up through Estes Park to cut over through the national park to go over to ski resorts because I'm like, well, I might as well just keep skiing for this year if we're gonna live in Colorado.

Got to the ski resorts and just, you know, you can't, it's it's really tough.

Even back in in the 90s, it was really tough to make a living and pay for your cost of living.

So we were just kind of at a loss of what to do.

And we're in a motel in Dillon, Colorado, and he said, let's flip a coin.

Heads we go to Massachusetts, tails we go to New Orleans.

And I'm like, well, no, I know.

Well, that was not part of the plan.

And so I was like, let's just go back to that little essence park town.

It was cute, it was affordable, it wasn't too far from Boulder, Denver, or the airport, you know, to visit family.

And that's how I wound up in Estes Park.

So, somewhat very randomly, in a way.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.

Well, well, I I mean, I had to laugh.

I mean, I thought we were gonna get the infamous, I mean, the whole thing of the coin flip, but then you're like, no, I don't, I don't want either side of the coin.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, nope, those are not my options.

SPEAKER_02: It's like listen, I choose a totally different coin.

Exactly.

Exactly, exactly.

I love it.

Now, one question I had was what was it that maybe compelled you that you wanted mountains?

Because earlier we were kind of talking about more, I was thinking a love for like the beach.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I think it was just that, just something opposite, something different.

You know, kind of just like what the South was to Massachusetts.

Like I was excited to go somewhere completely different, completely different culture, and kind of dip my toe in it and figure it out.

And then, like, you know, okay, that's good.

Glad I visited that.

And now I I just felt like the mountains were calling and uh let's go check them out.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

Now, now talk to me for those of us who are not familiar with Estes Park, Colorado and stuff.

Talk to me a little bit about that specific town and what it's like and what kind of drew you to it.

SPEAKER_04: Well, I obviously we knew nothing about it, except I didn't want to go to Massachusetts or or New Orleans, but it was a quaint little mountain town.

It's right at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

So you can imagine how stunning the backdrop is.

It's just it's just gorgeous.

The Continental Divide is right to the west of the town, and then the town is the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

So little did we know at that time that uh, because I think this was around October that we were there.

So we were there towards the end of the season.

Back in the 90s, the seasons ended, they've extended now.

They ended earlier than so um we have more people traveling, but it turns out that it's a very large tourist town because that's how you get into Rocky Mountain National Park.

So approximately now uh a day is it's like 4.5 visitors go through our little town.

Back then, I would say it was probably somewhat in the three million, so it's a really quiet town of about 6,000 people, surrounded by old mountains and big mountains and rock formations of all kinds.

It blows up to about 30 to 60,000 people in the summer, and then you have tourists that come through and visit and keep our little town alive financially.

And um, we're basically 45 minutes up from or 50 minutes up from like Boulder and Longmont and Loveland, and then about an hour and a half from from Denver.

So it was uh it's an awesome little town.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.

It's yeah, it sounds amazing, absolutely amazing.

Now, once you guys settled in there, how did life kind of progress from there?

Kind of curious with that relationship, with career-wise, just direction and life kind of in general.

SPEAKER_04: Well, I think we were going to, well, we were just getting whatever job we could to pay the bills because this wasn't our career.

You know, this wasn't our future.

This was just a pit stop along the way, and our future was going to you know really start in the next couple years.

So now it's just time to go out and have fun and work the jobs that pay the rent.

So I had gone, left the house with the little newspaper in my hand of who was hiring, and came back about 20 minutes later.

And he's like, Well, what happened?

I'm like, Well, I just walked into the first place and I got a job, so I felt like that was good.

And I walked into Ed's Cantina, which I decided to go the furthest away from the Want Ads, which was only like 10 minutes, and worked my way home.

But the first one worked, and uh that landed me at this restaurant called Ed's Cantina, which is still there today.

And you know, I never I had actually I worked as a in a restaurant when I was a teenager for a few months and swore it off and said I would never work in a restaurant again.

But here we are, you know, just trying to pay the bills.

So that was where I landed, and um he had wound up getting a job in construction, and a person from New Orleans getting a job in construction in October basically it was a real cold, windy winter for him.

Yes, yes, and I don't think he fell in love with that.

So, but how that you had mentioned the relationship, how that panned out is we moved there in October, and in February he left and went back to New Orleans.

So things things really weren't looking out, working out for us.

We really should have listened to that gut feeling and not had that big wedding, but we uh went our separate ways not too long after we tied the knot.

So we uh I think both realized quickly that outside of the easygoing pace of being in school and hitting that real life kind of feeling for the first time that we were we were not the right match for each other.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

Wow, yeah.

We we sometimes you never know until you just give it a shot, you know?

SPEAKER_04: So it's so true.

And we tried, and that was that was that.

But I but once we knew, we knew.

So I think we were both happy to um just kind of go our separate ways at that point.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Well, well, okay, so we'll we'll we'll just kind of uh summarize it to say with that love out of the way, how do we then find the love of rock climbing?

SPEAKER_04: Well, with that love out of the way, I basically felt kind of like I picked up first semester freshman year of college when we met.

So instead of being inspired to uh figure anything out, I basically just made some friends and had a good time and was like, oh, this is great.

I I work, I make a bunch of cash.

We all go out to the local bar, we have dance parties, close the bar down, bring everyone home.

And we just had a really good time.

The friends I had met at the restaurant, we were all just kind of having fun, and I was happy with that until one day I decided to try to run.

And I felt like, you know, look at all these people that they come into work and they're they're not bleary eyed, they're not hungover, they're happy.

Just went for a hike.

I mean, look at all these beautiful mountains around me.

And I'm like, well, maybe I should, maybe I should do something.

And so I decided to, uh, there's a path around like Estes, and I decided to try to jog it.

You know, I'm still in my 20s, like, no big deal, go out for a little jog.

And I couldn't even run a half a mile.

And I was just so shocked and kind of appalled at myself, like, good God, what would Miss Chang think of me now?

Like she'd be like, exactly right, exactly where I knew Melissa would wind up.

She could never run a lap anywhere.

So uh that definitely lit a fire in me that I needed to do something.

And for, you know, working with a bunch of other rock climbers, I had heard about rock climbing and had been asked to go rock climbing and on occasion had been persuaded to, you know, go out and try it.

And but again, being hung over and baking on a slab on a rock didn't really win me over.

So I realized that there was a core life change I needed to make within myself, and that was stay out of the bars, quit smoking.

I smoked cigarettes back then.

Let's try to get outside and enjoy life while you still can.

So oddly enough, like it was this really strange thing that just happened to me one day, and thank goodness it did.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

That's that's an amazing, amazing story.

Now, obviously, rock climbing would would become a big part of your story.

And so I would love to just hear a little bit more about specifically rock climbing.

Maybe when was that moment when when you started climbing when you realized, oh my gosh, I love this.

Like I'm just kind of curious to understand how that that whole kind of aspect transpired.

SPEAKER_04: Well, like I said, going out hung over, baking on a slab, did not win me over.

So I had to eliminate those aspects.

But right then and there, like when that spark kind of hit me, that you know, on that run I couldn't even finish, I said, I've you know, I've got to do something.

And so I called my friend uh who had been asking me to go out climbing with her for a year, and I said, Let's let's go.

Like, when are you going climbing again?

And she uh invited me out that week with a group of girlfriends, and so a few days later, here I am trying to keep up with people on the hike, which was challenging enough.

I'm like, oh my god, how am I gonna even climb up a rock again?

I can't even do the approach, let alone pull onto this rock that's gonna come up at the end of this hike.

But I got there without, you know, peeling over, and they gave me the 101 basic, which I had the rundown before, but this was different.

I had climbed before on Lucky Ridge, which is traditional climbing.

So you use gear and you put it into the rock to secure your path up.

And if you fall, you know, you get caught by that gear you put into the rock, and one person goes ahead of you, and then you're left on the ground.

And then when it's your time to climb, then you start climbing up to that person.

Yeah, obviously, as a beginner, you were I was never leading for the couple times I went out.

So this was different because this was sport climbing, and what my friend did was she had had her friend belay her and climb to the top and put a top rope up.

So there was a rope coming from the person on the bottom that went all the way to the top of the climb through anchors and back down.

So then she could stay on the ground and belay me while I attempted this rock climb.

So having her there, I think was helpful too to just kind of like talk me through a few things and get me on the rock.

And once I got on the rock, you know, you kind of look at it first and you're like, how am I gonna even get on this rock?

How am I gonna, what do I grab?

What do I hold on to?

And then once I started moving, something just took over and I loved it.

I loved the movement, I loved the feeling of it.

I wasn't as terrified as I was when I first tried to climb, and the person is away from you, and you're just dangling off the end of this rope kind of by yourself.

There was something about being able to be in contact with my friend who was encouraging me and you know, telling me, oh, it's okay that your legs are shaking.

You, you know, just sit back on the rope and relax, because you know, the more tense you get, the more you over-grip, and you don't have I didn't have any of the muscles to do any of this.

So my legs are twitching, my hands are are losing grip, and you know, but I was I was having fun and I sat back and I contemplated things, and then she's like, You can pull back on now if you know once you're rested, and and I did, and I was just so could see the top of the climb, and I was so determined to get there.

And once I got there, that was it.

I just I knew I wanted to do this over and over again for as long as I could.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

Now the term that you used earlier, and I I've heard it when people talk about recognition belay.

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_04: Well, she's holding so the rope that that went that they put up through the top of the anchors and back down.

She has a harness on and she has a bullet device, and that rope runs through her ballet device.

Back then it wasn't an automatic one, they have automatic gri-grees, is what they call them now.

Back then, it was it was not automated, and you just kind of use friction to stop the rope from running through it if the person fell.

But they're in charge of making sure you're you're safe, and if you fall, that rope gets pulled tight and you're safe.

The rope isn't going to run through that device and you know, plummet you all the way to the ground, you know, if you're doing everything correctly.

Of course, people can make mistakes, and and those mistakes have have happened, sadly.

So you can belay someone's sport climbing and even traditional climbing.

Like when I was hanging on that rope away from the person who climbed away from me, they were at an anchor belaying me up to them.

So doing the same thing Bronson did from the ground, but now from above.

So basically, it's the person that's making sure you're not gonna die.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, quite the responsibility.

Yeah, wow, definitely.

So, so it it truly I'm gonna say like rock climbing, which is something that I in my head I think of as a solo sport, it's really more of a team sport.

SPEAKER_04: Well, in in that case, on a rope, it it really is.

I mean, I think maybe when people think of like Alex Honnold and free soloing, like he's up there by himself.

You know, if you are climbing with a partner, then you definitely are relying uh heavily on that partner to you know keep you safe on a rope and vice versa.

And then eventually I moved into bouldering, and that is different, you know, it but in you can go out and climb by yourself, bouldering.

But to me, there was always a team and social aspect of bouldering that I liked a lot as well, is that if you're climbing with friends on the same boulder problem, because you know, there's a rock, and some of these gigantic rocks can have five, six, seven, eight, ten more boulder problems on the rock.

But you know, if you're climbing on the same problem with a friend or partner, um, it's really fun because you're just kind of figuring out how the moves work and what worked for you, what might work for them can be totally different because you know we're all different shapes and sizes, and we usually have different strengths as well.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Okay, so I'm gonna ask a stupid question.

The what is really the difference in bouldering?

I mean, obviously, I'm picturing a big massive rock boulder instead of like a a mountain face, but like what what would compel you to one versus the other?

SPEAKER_04: Well, there's there's the big difference would be there's no ropes, but so to me, you know, it makes things easier, right?

Because you're not you're not worried about typically you don't worry about dying bouldering.

I mean, some people do climb pretty high up, and you know, something could happen severe, but you take a bit of the fear factor out, but you also lose the rope.

So you lose a lot of the technical gear.

You carry big foam pads that you land on if you fall, and you know, a lot of times you do fall, and your friends help direct you to that.

So another thing that to me was really different about it is the grading of it.

So a rock climb with a rope, traditional or sport, starts with a five grade.

So five, five, five, six.

So even some hikes get a five grade, you know, and that's when you know, like, hey, this is gonna get serious.

I'm gonna be doing a little like scrambling, I'm gonna be putting my hands down to get maybe up this talus field or something like that.

But then once you get into five, five, five, six, you're usually roping up for that.

The bouldering scale starts at V0.

So V0 is the equivalent to five ten.

So that's one thing I liked about the bouldering is scale, or not bouldering scale, but bouldering in general is the difficulty.

So you kind of go back to that rope climbing and you climb a lot, you you hike a lot, you you set up your gear, you climb, climb, climb, and then you get to the crux of the problem, which could be you know eight to ten feet of climbing.

And that's where you know, that highest point of that grade, that difficulty is represented right there in that crux.

Well, now you take that crux and you just put it on a big rock, and you don't have to do all the things to get to that crux.

You're just starting that difficult challenge right off the ground.

And to me, that's where I think I really fell in love with bouldering.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04: Hopefully that makes sense.

So cool.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it does.

Well, I mean, I'm just in my head, I'm I'm listening to you, and I'm just thinking, like, wow, how what what I picture in my head coming from the flat state of Florida is is is I just can't help but think in my head, just to be in a situation where you can have boulders like you're talking about.

No, it's like talk about being in the most like picturesque, beautiful places on earth in that moment.

SPEAKER_04: It's amazing.

That's what I love about it.

You know, it's it gets you outside, and it I mean, sometimes you're near a river and the trees are swaying and you can hear the leaves, and it's just uh it's gorgeous.

I know a lot of people climb today inside, and I I do as well.

We have climbing gyms usually in our garage that keep us strong and keep us fit, but to me, the purpose of climbing is to be outside.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I love it.

Okay, so I'm curious to know that your husband that you have today that you're married to.

SPEAKER_04: The new one.

SPEAKER_02: You guys you guys met while doing this sport you love as well, correct?

SPEAKER_04: Correct, yes.

It took me years, you know.

I dated people and never, never uh, I guess found the right guy.

But yeah, Adam came into my life through mutual friends who were rock climbers, and he had moved to Estes Park for the summer just to a lot of people go up to Estes, obviously, for the summer for different reasons.

The beauty, but also the heat, you know, the hotter it gets everywhere else, the higher up you go, the cooler it is.

So a lot of rock climbers are you know heading for the hills for the summer to get cooler temperatures so they can climb.

So he headed to Estes Park to check it out, and he had never been there before.

And we I hadn't made plans to meet up with my friends who are climbing, and they said, Oh, another friend is coming.

Hope that's okay.

Of course, that's always okay.

The more, the more people means the more crash pads, which means the more comfy of a landing space, right?

Could never say no to that.

So, yeah, that's how that's how we met.

Was it was at a roadside boulder.

So maybe not the most picturesque scene, but still uh a roadside boulder in Rocky Mountain National Park.

SPEAKER_02: So I mean, I think to myself, I mean, what better way to find the person you're meant to be with than to find them doing the thing that you love to do?

I mean, that's just that's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_04: It worked out, and then we realized, you know, you you can take uh take that equation, you know, that issue, that potential future issue out of the equation.

Honey, I'm going climbing.

You're going climbing again?

You know, now it's like, where are we going climbing?

SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I love it so much.

Wow.

Okay, so skipping ahead in your story.

Obviously, I have no idea the timeline of events.

I'm gonna assume it's gonna be a while later on.

Because at some point in time you have an idea to get into the restaurant business, which obviously you're gonna have to fill in some gaps because I'm like, where does that even come from?

That seems totally out of left field.

So if you would kind of catch me up to speed, how do we even get to that point in your story of thinking about opening a restaurant?

SPEAKER_04: Well, that first job at Ed's Cantina, you know, not only paid my bar tab, but once I stayed out of the bar, I'm like, wow, this is this is good money.

This is good cash.

And then once I started rock climbing, I was like, wow, this is perfect.

You know, I can climb and work here all summer, fall, and spring.

And then when it gets really cold out and the tourists leave and I don't have as many shifts, I can just travel.

And my boss has loved it.

You know, as long as you come back, like, yeah, go away in the off season and come back when it's busy.

So the whole restaurant life was really working out for me.

I did go back to clear that, I guess check that box off the list with the uh master's and PhD in literature.

Uh, and I did go back to school for a little bit and explore, you know, hey, is this that road that was so once a thing for me?

Is that is that gonna still be a thing for me?

You know, I I enjoyed going back and taking some classes at CU Boulder, but it just didn't have that same spark that that it had when I was in college.

So I closed that door and said, well, you know, hey, this this restaurant climbing thing is working out for me.

But then at the same time, you know, Estes was kind of um a little too comfortable for its own self.

I think, you know, the restaurant movement was happening all around us in Denver and Boulder.

You know, all these great restaurants were were popping up, and it was a huge food movement.

And Estes Park wasn't seeing any of that, it was just still like in the dark ages as far as that went.

And it was like a tourist town, it's not broke, don't fix it.

And I just didn't want to have to kind of drive on my day off to go eat at a good restaurant.

I felt like you know, Estes, you know, should have its own good restaurant, and so I worked really, I that was my dream.

It's kind of just how it all came to be was wanting that for our community.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.

So I know for myself, I've thought uh along and along how I would have would love to open a restaurant, but the idea of opening a restaurant and actually opening a restaurant are like two totally different things.

And I mean, it's no doubt that I think it's probably one of the hardest uh businesses to get into to be successful at.

So for you, I mean, where did it even start?

Like, you does it obviously, I guess maybe starts with a concept.

Does it start by seeing a location you want?

Like, how did the journey kind of unfold?

SPEAKER_04: A lot of it started with, I mean, definitely eating in other people's restaurants and seeing what was happening, and okay, I would do this or I wouldn't do this, or you know, why would they even do this?

And then that just kept fueling what was in me.

And to take that and manifest it definitely was location.

You know, hey, where you know, I've got all these dreams, I've got all these ideas, but you need a you need a you need a storefront, you need a location.

So that was where I started.

I also wanted a partner.

I didn't want to do it alone because I liked my life of climbing.

I didn't, I didn't want to, you know, have to give up those winters of traveling.

I mean, I knew I would initially for X amount of years, but I felt like if I could do it with someone, well then you could split the workload and it wouldn't be as daunting.

At least that's what I, you know, told myself in those early years.

So yeah, it was it was finding a place to land.

I kind of had the concept in my head.

I knew what I wanted to make and what I wanted to do, and then it was finding the location.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

So now how did it come about where you would end up deciding to open the restaurant?

How did you you decide on that?

SPEAKER_04: Well, I got a realtor and started looking around at places, and you know, there was definitely some places that I thought, oh, this this could work.

You know, when you want something to work so bad, sometimes the idea like is better than what it actually is.

Yeah.

You're like, okay, I really want this to work, so this location's gonna be great.

And I had a few of those locations that I, you know, either talked to the landlord or looked at at purchasing the spot, and it just it really wasn't working out.

And um then just really kind of one of those small town or you know, who knows that how life kind of unfolds in those strange ways.

You know, when when one door was closing, basically another one opened, and I had talked to the bank because I also needed money, right?

Like it's great to, okay, I need a location, I need this, I need that.

But uh, if you don't have any money, I guess uh none of it's really gonna happen, sadly.

And so the the bank that I wound up talking to and telling them, like, these are my dreams, this is what I want to do.

He had helped a hotel group come in and buy this restaurant and hotel that's less than one mile away from Rocky Mountain National Park.

You have the the mountains or your view.

Um it was really, it's just kind of the ultimate location.

Uh, but the guy didn't want to run a restaurant and a hotel, he just was a hotel guy, and so he wanted to go through the process of subdividing it and selling it to someone who wanted a restaurant, and so it was just that connection.

And I had just switched banks like a month beforehand.

So it was all those little pieces that fell together, and that's how I landed uh where our current location is in for Bird and Jim is the restaurant, and it used to be the uh old Suntek restaurant.

SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.

I uh you know what?

It's just some things you you know what it's meant to be when uh things finally start falling into piece almost like effortlessly, in a way, you know, where it's like, oh wait, this was meant to happen.

This was meant to happen so that this would happen.

So I think that's that's incredible.

Now the name of your restaurant, Bird and Jim.

Please tell me what what the what is the name?

What does that even mean, Bird and Jim?

SPEAKER_04: Well, you know, it's so funny.

I've always wanted to open a food truck so I could call it the flying bird.

Bird and Jim is historic characters.

So Isabella Bird and Mountain Jim.

Isabella Byrd came to Estes Park in the late 1800s.

She was obviously a Victorian woman who was from Scotland.

And I mean, as you know, back then women read books, learned the piano, did needlepoint working, stuff like that.

They didn't travel by themselves around the world, but Isabella Byrd did.

And when she traveled, she wrote letters home to her sister.

So all of this is in bound in books now, all of her letters.

So it's really cool that we get such a a picture of wherever she was.

And she was determined to get to Estes Park during this trip to Colorado.

So she had a few failed attempts where she uh, or a failed attempt where she tried to come up with a couple from The Loveland directions, the highway 34 direction, which is more east, and didn't make it.

Just really sounded like an awful time of getting lost in the woods with horses sliding down steep slopes.

It sounded horrible.

But she was like so determined that she landed at an inn now, like in the Longmont area.

And this guy who ran the inn said he had some younger, I think they were college students who were heading up a different route that was a little more established.

And she went with them and got to Estes Park.

And as you come into Estes Park from that direction, you get into this valley where it just opens up and it's it's so beautiful.

And you can see the mountains kind of through this opening in the valley at the far end.

And apparently that's where she met Mountain Jim.

And Mountain Jim was like a local hunter trapper, also like the local remnant, because he was mauled by a bear.

And as she describes him, like a marble statue on one side, and the other side of his face was what was mauled.

And she stayed with the I think it was the Evans family and homesteaded for about three months.

And our tallest peak in Estes Park is we have a 14er, it's Long's Peak.

And she was determined to get up Long's Peak.

And with the help of Mountain Jim, she summited Long's Peak.

And there was an alleged romance.

And then she left.

And after she left, um, he was shot and died.

So there's uh little bit of SS Park history.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

Okay, so I am so glad I asked the question because I mean, well, first off, how could you not ask the question with the name as unique as that?

But I was honestly thinking it was, I don't know, like silly nicknames or something.

And but to instead get to understand that you got to name it something of truly this amazing story of the location that it's in.

I mean, I think that's just absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_03: It's super fun, and a lot of people think that too.

They're like, so who's bird?

Who's Jim?

And I'm like, well, they're like, are you bird?

And I'm like, I'd be really old if I was bird, well.

SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, I love it.

I love it.

Well, so in the process of you opening the restaurant, I believe that's what's gonna take us into one kind of next chapter in your story.

And so I would love it if you would kind of take me back in time to, I believe it was maybe April 2nd of 2017, and hoping that maybe you could take me back to what was going on, what was happening that day, and and we'll kind of go from there.

SPEAKER_04: It was, I feel like a lot was happening that day because I was, I had found the location, I was trying to secure the finances, I was so, so stressed about securing the loan.

We had uh hired a contractor, we had asbestos removed, I'm borrowing money from my family to pay for this and to keep this all going.

And, you know, still have no idea where that loan's gonna come from.

I just got back from a climbing trip with my husband.

My husband and I had gone to, Adam and I had gone to Waco Tanks, which is a place we climbed in Texas for the winter and came back.

And it was just, you know, early spring.

Thankfully, that year we had a lot of snow.

And if we don't can't always say that in Colorado now, but um I yeah, just didn't want to go outside and climb and you know, post holes through a bunch of snow.

And it's it's kind of always a pain in the butt spring climbing when you're dealing with that.

But uh I decided that okay, I'll just um I'll climb on our climbing wall today, I'll get a workout in, because no matter what, you know, you gotta you gotta stay fit and keep focusing on that part too.

After the climb, I said, oh well, I can do these wood burning designs on the table legs.

And uh I still have a few hours, it was you know getting lighter later.

And the back up a little is the wood burning designs for the table legs came into play with the fact that I had no money and I'm still renovating the restaurant.

And I'm like, well, there's old pine tables in here that definitely don't fit the look I'm going for.

But you know, if we have to buy you know 30 new tables, that's just gonna keep adding up and adding up.

So let's take these old tables and let's see how I can make a you know fit into this new kind of vibe that I'm going for.

And I had tried a bunch of different things here and there, paints, wood burning tools, you name it.

And the wood burning tools were cool, but gosh, they were intensive because it's like a little pen that you plug in and you're drawing all the designs.

So maybe a few weeks before, prior to this, my husband found the lifting burger technique, which is um a wood burning technique that you do with electricity.

And uh he showed it to me on the internet, and I'm like, well, that's super cool.

Like, can you make me that machine?

And he's like, Yeah, of course.

Like it's just an old microwave transformers, the powerhouse.

And basically, he we had an old microwave that we weren't gonna use at the restaurant from the previous from the Sundeck.

And so I dug that out of the contain the storage container, proudly brought it home, and this is gonna be great.

And he gutted it, took the transformer out, hooked it up to two leads, almost like like mini jumper cables like you would use for a car.

Put the, you know, the power source was still attached, you could plug it in.

And so then you take these two leads, you paint baking soda and water onto the wood, you attach these two little clamps to the wood.

The on-off switch for the machine was plugging it in.

He felt like if there was no on-off switch, then I really couldn't screw it up because like it is up on, is down on, is up off, down off.

SPEAKER_03: Like he's like, show if you can believe it, he put a lot of thought into this and said, she'll never screw it up this way.

SPEAKER_04: And so this way to get it to turn on, you had to plug it in.

So we had done a handful of burns together.

Really cool.

It looks like um kind of rivers on a map, makes these really cool, cool lines.

And um so I had finished climbing and was like, oh, there's there's time to um, you know, try this on a chair, on a chair from the restaurant and see how it looks on the back of the chair.

And I had uh decided I was gonna work outside because it was so nice out of spring.

So I moved everything outside, including the machine.

I unrolled an extension cord and I wanted to make sure the extension cord was going to you know be enough of an extension cord that the machine would be outside and that the leads would fit, you know, all well enough cable.

So I plugged it in to see if it would all have enough length.

And right then, for some reason, I remembered that I forgot the baking soda and water.

Also, strangely enough, the it the machine always sparked when I plugged it into the wall.

And it didn't spark when I plugged it into the extension cord, making me think like, oh, the extension cord did isn't in the wall.

Like it, you know, might have come out of the wall, or just weird, it didn't spark.

So I don't think it's it's alive.

Anyway, that thought just immediately got wiped out with uh, you forgot the baking soda and water.

And I dropped the cords and went inside, mixed up the baking soda and water, came outside and picked up the two leads.

And right then and there, it was just instant.

I I knew I made the ultimate mistake of my life, and I was connected to the electric chain.

SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.

So so the leads, what what what should you have done?

Like trying to understand how it works.

SPEAKER_04: Well, I should have unplugged the machine when I plugged it in, you know, or if I thought like, oh, the extension cord isn't plugged into the wall where it came loose, I should have backtracked, you know, and made sure it was plugged in or not plugged in.

But either way, I should have unplugged the machine, and I just just like I said, made a mistake.

Just either, you know, distracted or the thought that I thought the machine wasn't plugged in.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Wow.

So you grab these ends, these leads, the the ends that you kind of described as jumper cables.

SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: What happens?

SPEAKER_04: Well uh instead of the leads being connected to the wood and making that cool design with electricity on the wood, they were connected to me, and the electricity was now pulsing through me.

And when that happens, you can't move, you can't scream, you can't fall over.

Those were my first thoughts.

Well, my first thought was this is exactly what Adam told me not to do.

And then my next thoughts were, you know, can I scream?

He he was inside, you know.

Maybe if I could scream, he could hear me and come save me.

But you can't, you can't even scream.

You were you were literally frozen.

And you know, then another thought was maybe I could shake my hands, and one might fall, you know, I could get one to fall out.

I couldn't shake my hands.

Instead, like while all this was happening, the humming of the machine was just growing louder, and my hands were gripping harder, clenching the electricity was just forcing my muscles to just clench up.

And then, you know, I thought, like, oh, maybe I could fall over, and one of them might come out of my hand if I could just like fall over on it.

And uh, I couldn't even fall down.

Uh, it's the strangest feeling in in the world when you're completely aware of what's happening to you, and there's absolutely no response that you physically can can muster.

And that's when I realized I was dying, and just said, Well, this really sucks.

I'm gonna die before I get to open my my restaurant.

And then that was it, it was dark.

So, in a way, full circle, that's why I'm lucky.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

You it was literally like you just became a statue.

SPEAKER_04: Totally.

Just frozen.

SPEAKER_02: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Now talk to me about when this happens, because I know that you had a really powerful what I'm gonna classify as like a near-death experience.

Would you mind sharing what was happening?

SPEAKER_04: Well, at that point, everything went dark.

You know, I my last thoughts were I'm dying, and I, you know, I kind of don't want to die, but I don't have any control over it.

And uh everything went dark.

And all of a sudden I was in a beautiful forest, and it was just gorgeous.

The sun was coming through the high canopy, it was lighting up ferns on the ground, and I was looking off to my left and just really captivated with how beautiful the forest was.

And then I turned my head and looked forward, and right in front of me was this huge tunnel hanging in the middle of this beautiful forest.

And you know, I just remember it was lined with stones, and it was dark.

The center of the tunnel was dark, and in between me and the tunnel were these shadowy figures that were floating.

And I'm a super vivid dreamer.

And uh my first thought was asking myself, you know, or is this a dream?

And I answered myself, like, I know we're a vivid dreamer, but this is this is happening.

This is not a dream, this is real.

And then I kind of said, Well, if this is real, I want to get out of here.

And I think if I could get to help, I think I could be okay.

And it was just kind of with that thought that I left that scene.

It's just everything kind of went dark again, and then I opened my eyes and blinked, and I saw the gravel on my driveway.

So I obviously had fallen over.

What you know, why had I fallen over?

I had no idea.

The last thing I knew is I couldn't fall over and I was dying, you know, and now all of a sudden I'm on the ground.

But it was it was all a lot to absorb.

But all I could do at that point was just scream.

So all of those screams that were kind of trapped inside of me for those 20 seconds where I couldn't scream, all just erupted.

And my husband still didn't hear me.

So then I stood up and somehow took stood up and took five steps to the door.

Well, I some would say somehow, but obviously it was adrenaline.

And at that point, that's when I saw the damage of what was gone, you know, what was burnt on me.

And you know, I screamed into the house and then he came out.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

Have you had time to unpack for yourself what that scene was that you talked about from the beautiful forest to the dark cave to the I think you you said shadowy, like dark figures.

Have you had taken the time to process what that all meant?

SPEAKER_04: Well, I had a lot of time because coming up after that was nothing but kind of like time and waiting to see, you know, what was going to happen medically for me, what could happen medically for me.

And that image was so, I mean, all of that was so vivid and so real that I almost couldn't escape sitting with it for a while.

You know, obviously it wasn't initial, it was get to help, get to the hospital, get to another hospital.

Okay.

And then once I woke up at that other hospital, really all I could think of was the tunnel in the forest in my hands.

You know, those were the those were the thoughts.

Okay, this thing I saw and was in, and it was real.

And these charred bones sitting in front of me.

It's really, you know, all I had to sit with.

And since the doctors couldn't tell me anything at that moment about my hands, it was back to all I have is to sit with this tunnel and this forest and this scene I saw.

And funny enough, with my Catholic upbringing or you know, whatever, you don't even need to be Catholic to hear, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel, right?

And I was just so upset because the tunnel was dark.

And I'm like, oh my God, that's it.

SPEAKER_03: I'm going to hell.

And that was sadly, that was my initial takeaway.

And I was just like, Adam, the tunnel was dark when I woke up.

SPEAKER_04: And you know, this poor guy is like his gosh, I mean, I can't.

One day I'd love for him to write down what he thought and saw, but I can't even imagine uh what he was going through at that moment, and that I was concerned about the tunnel.

I felt the inky, the shadowy figures, they were people I knew who died.

I felt like one of them was my grandmother, and I felt like another was a friend, a climbing friend who had just passed away uh a few months before the accident.

I felt like their presence was there to keep me away from going into the tunnel, that it wasn't, you know, my time to go in there.

And I definitely felt like they were guarding the tunnel.

And it took a conversation with my family.

Adam's like, you know, let's let's call your parents, you know, because it's the first time I'm waking up.

So it's the first thing I'm talking about is have they said anything about my hands?

No.

And then I went right to the tunnel.

He called my parents because they had, you know, heard that there was the accident, but they hadn't spoken to me yet.

I was just like uploaded on them.

The tunnel was dark.

And they're like, What the hell are you talking about?

And I'm like, no, the tunnel was dark.

Like I saw the tunnel and it was dark, and my mom just immediately, like, without even skipping, uh uh taking a breath, you know, nothing.

She's just like, Well, it wasn't your time to go in the tunnel, Melissa, so therefore it was dark.

And I'm like, Okay, you're right, she's right.

Which uh, as my mom would tell you, uh, I hardly ever say that right off the bat.

I usually say it after a lot of time.

She usually is right, but uh I usually don't agree right away.

But yeah, it you know, she helped me kind of feel that right then, and then you know, the the figures definitely back that up, that it wasn't my time.

And the beautiful forest is I've heard people, I've told this, you know, you tell the story to a handful of people.

I actually told it to a neurologist one time.

So I was having really bad migraines, and so they wanted to see if it was connected at all to the accident because the electricity traveled up my arms and down and out my chest.

So it touched, you know, obviously your spinal cord and things up in the back of your neck.

Anyway, the neurologist said you were in Eden.

And I was like, wow, okay, you don't find, especially doctors kind of, you know, doctors are a little more grounded in science, but she really felt that, and I thought that was pretty cool.

But that forest is always, you know, whenever I I meditate or I do breath work, you know, and you're going back into the essence of you or whatever, whatever the person guiding you is saying, I always go back to that forest, and that forest is a very comfortable, like happy place for me, which is I find interesting.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

Very, very powerful story.

But back to when this happened and you you came out of that.

And do you remember vividly and like able to put it into words what you saw when you looked at your hands?

SPEAKER_04: It was horrifying what I saw.

I I saw charred burnt bones.

Like literally, I saw the ends of my fingers instead of there being, you know, that nice fleshy material that was just not there.

And there were charred bones there and kind of like charred deflated flesh that melted away in certain points of like my palms to like a waxy, light yellow, like accrue type of center.

It was strange be because there's no blood, or because everything was cauterized.

Usually when you see or think of something horrific, or uh, you know, you watch a horror movie or a doctor's show, there's always so much blood.

Well, there was no blood, so you could really, really get a handle of the damage really quickly, which was well not so great, I think, um, mentally for me.

Those images will will definitely never go away either.

You know, all I could see is everything I loved to do, and what my future in a restaurant would look like, you know, what what would any of it look like with these with these burnt bones?

You know, what could a doctor do?

Like what would my future look like?

And I had no answer.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yeah, without a doubt.

And I mean, not only the restaurant, but I mean what we've talked about climbing.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: I mean wow, wow.

So obviously, in any recovery with something like this, there's the physical recovery and the emotional recovery.

What was we take it kind of piece by piece, the the physical recovery.

What what happened from here?

Obviously, I'm gonna assume there was a lot of time in hospital, but but what was that journey of physically recovering from such an injury?

SPEAKER_04: It's crazy, right?

When when something happens to you, anyone out there knows it.

You break a leg, you sprain an ankle, whatever, whatever you do to yourself, uh, you lose muscle mass so quickly.

It's kind of unfair how fast it goes away and how difficult it is to come back, you know.

So the physical recovery was was long.

And I mean, first off, there were eight surgeries that were spaced out over about six or seven months.

So in between those surgeries, any strength that you know you might have even gained, you know, you you you face losing again.

But when I when I left the hospital, physically, I was just a shell of myself.

I could, you know, barely even move my wrists.

So I I was really starting at ground zero.

My arms looked like little pipe cleaners, just these skinny little strands of like spaghetti.

Uh, and I I physically hadn't Even rotated my wrist for uh almost a couple months at that point.

And so physically, my recovery there was baby steps.

Just okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna rotate my wrist today.

I'm going to rotate my shoulders today.

My arms were sewn together for three weeks, which means you're not really rotating your or moving your arms freely at all.

Um so coming out of positions like that left a a vast ocean of of movement that I that I needed to do just to even get back to square one.

It was it was tough, definitely.

It would it was definitely uh you know thoughts of of why even try, you know, what's the point?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yeah, no doubt.

Now talk to me a little bit because I know from your your book, you you talk in depth about this, and I'm very interested for you to to explain it to me.

You you mentioned briefly about having your arms sewn together at one point.

Yeah.

And so explain to me what in the world that was all about.

SPEAKER_04: Well, when they first woke me up at the hospital, they said if I had stayed there, I'd probably only have four fingers, my pinky fingers and my index fingers.

And all they could do was just let the injury declare itself because electricity is like frostbite, and it's takes a while before it you even know the damage, and that they would just debride, they would just clean and trim away dead tissue.

And they uh said that they were gonna transfer me to another hospital, which I'm like, well, that's my prognosis here.

Like, great.

Try another, please.

And that there was uh a plastic surgeon who um specialized in hands, who had done amazing things.

And I'm like, okay, well, that that sounds better than four fingers.

But he saw the pictures and he wasn't optimistic.

I'm like, okay, you you know, I understand you have to put all the reality in there, but um definitely transfer me.

So when I met Dr.

Ignichuk, he pricked the both the pin pricked my thumb tips.

And he said that if there was blood, that if if if any blood surfaced with these pinpricks, that he would try to help save my thumbs.

And that moment was obviously a huge moment.

Um, especially, I mean, it's a huge moment when someone's coming at you with a needle on these, these, these thumb tips that were suspended by burnt bones.

I'm like, okay, well, now they're gonna save me with needles, but let's let's just see what happens.

Let's hope for that blood.

And thank God, thank anyone, thank everyone, that your thumbs have arteries on the backs of them.

The only fingers that have arteries on the backs of them.

So that part, uh, the back of my thumbs were not damaged and the artery was still intact and um delivered blood.

So he said he would try to help.

And uh right off the bat, it wasn't like so.

Next I'm gonna sew your arms together.

It was uh, you know, let's take a look, let's have a few surgeries, let me get in there, let me assess the damage, let me see where the blood is flowing and where obviously anywhere there's blood flowing might be hope to save any of the material.

After a few kind of deprivements and let's take a deeper look surgery, he came up with um bilateral flaps.

And uh, I'm sure I know there's a medical name for all of this, and they do call it flaps, where they need to move a big portion of skin to another portion in your body, is one of the reasons why they use this.

And obviously, these exposed burnt bones needed to in in the palms that had these kind of burnt craters in them, needed to be covered by skin.

And that skin comes from your body.

Your body tends to reject donor skin.

So that was one reason to sew my arms together, was to introduce these large portions of skin to its what would hopefully be its new home, because your body can also reject these graphs as well.

And the other um point was to see if they could introduce just good blood flow to the area to see if there was anything else that might kind of spark back to life or benefit from that good blood flow and um see if they could save it.

So he came up with the idea of they've done flaps before where they'll sew your arm, your hand, any part of you into another part of you to uh to harvest to create this skin that's going to accept its new home.

And yes, apparently they hadn't done bilateral before, so doing both of them at the same time, which was great because it would have been a lot longer of a process if we were just doing one hand at a time.

And obviously both hands needed to be addressed, like ASAP.

So yeah, he suggested let's do these, this flap, and he explained it to me.

And you know, when you start hearing things like that, it's terrifying.

You're like, all you can just kind of picture these like horror movies or something like what is gonna happen to me.

But I, you know, I went from you'll only have four fingers to someone who's trying to help me.

And I had decided if anyone would try to help me, I would do whatever it took, you know, to receive that and see what the best possible outcome would be.

And he initially suggested sewing my thumbs into my abdomen so my arms would have been bent at an angle, and it just sounded like a horrible idea to me right off the bat.

So, like, you know, you're just you're hearing this all for the first time within like, you know, 10 minutes, and you're like trying to process it all.

And you're like, okay, now imagine myself with my arms, which were my hands were were completely banished at that point, you know, and I think I had them resting on my abdomen, and I'm thinking, like, oh, how is this gonna be?

Like, how am I gonna, because at this point I I haven't used my hands now in in like a week or so, and so I can't do anything for myself, but I can at least move my arms independently.

And now I'm like, okay, how am I gonna get out of this hospital bed with my arms sewn into my abdomen?

How am I gonna, you know, do any of these little things that I can at least do as far as movement goes with my arms being independent?

And uh anyway, he lifted up my hospital gown and looked at my abdomen and said, Well, there's just not enough material there.

And like, well, years of fitness, years of abs, you know, I am a climber, and I I always try to remind them that I was a climber, and how I mean, everyone's hands are important to them, but um, you know, just how instrumental they were to that part of me.

And so then he, I don't know, we go back and forth on this one quite a bit.

He says it's my idea, and I'm like, how on earth is it my idea?

But um, I I remember it being his idea that we sew my thumbs into my opposing forearms.

So I initially said, like, I dream of Genie, trying, of course, to find the best case scenario there.

And then in the end, I kind of felt like I'm like, well, this is also kind of like the straitjacket pose, uh, and I'm I'm sewn like this.

Uh it was horrible.

There's there's just no two ways around it, you know.

If you don't you don't go through something like that, and I couldn't find a positive in that one.

But I I, you know, just people tell me that they don't have what it takes to go through something like that.

I'm like, but you do, because I would have said the same thing if the roles were reversed.

Like, I don't think I would have what it takes even today to go through it.

But um I did it, I don't know how.

Um, and I did it to save my thumbs, you know.

Just if someone gives you that opportunity, well, suffer for three weeks to potentially get a good outcome.

Sure, sign me up.

So um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

So is that the so that's how long it would would take was only three weeks?

SPEAKER_04: Well, initially he told me a week to two.

And oh wow, you know, that's like okay, okay, you know, because you're you're mentally like, how, okay, how can I endure this?

Okay, it's only for for this amount of time, so you know, I can endure it.

And then um, as time went on, uh, initially things were looking good, and then towards the end of maybe I I don't exactly remember how many days, but maybe like 10 or so, maybe nine or so days, my one thumb tip started to not look as good.

And he said, Well, let's let's let's let's go the full three weeks.

And I'm like, What do you mean full three weeks?

You never said anything about three weeks.

I never heard three weeks, but we want up, we wound up going three full weeks um with my arms in that position.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

So what would be the final outcome for your hands?

SPEAKER_04: Well, when they separated my arms, they obviously they harvested um a lot of other skin from other parts of my body.

So it's uh not only did I need new skin for thumbs, but there were still other portions of my hands that were still burnt and needed skin, including the exit wounds where the electricity came out.

They were big enough holes that they weren't healing on their own.

He, gosh, I think it was like an eight or nine hour surgery for them that uh I was on the table for, and they took um different parts of my thigh skin and my groin skin, and they sewed them onto different areas of my hands.

After, of course, they had to undo my hands, capture that skin from my forearms, wrap those and sew those around my thumbs, and then add in all those other pieces of skin.

So basically, I I I couldn't I didn't see that result.

Uh, it was you had to be as still as possible for I forget exactly, it was like six or seven days that he wanted me to just sit there still and heal.

And then I got to see what they look like.

So at that point, to me, they looked horrible.

Like it was like I call them Frankenstein baseball mitts.

It looked like like a quilt of my body placed on my hands.

And of course, at this time, your hands are still traumatized, they're still so swollen and gigantic.

And um there was still a lot of healing and a lot of surgeries to go, which I, you know, it's hard to it's hard to, it's obviously hard to see into the future uh in general, but when you're going through something this difficult, it's and you just keep kind of seeing this horror show at the end of your hands, it's it's hard to know that okay, they're gonna look better in six months from now.

Um, it was kind of shocking to me because it was like, oh, I was just so patient, I was so good, I did everything I was told, and now I'm gonna get to see my new hands.

And I saw them and I was like, oh my god, this is uh this is rough.

SPEAKER_02: Wow, yeah.

I can I can't I can't imagine.

I can't imagine.

Now, so would you lose how many fingers on each hand?

SPEAKER_04: Uh I lost a lot of the fingertips.

So there's one, two, three fingertips, just the tops kind of portion of your finger if you bent them, or gone.

Uh, and then from the middle knuckle up, that is one finger on my right hand, and then on my thumbs, the flexor tendons were blown out of them.

But it's like, gosh, I have thumbs, you know.

There's at times where I didn't think I'd have thumbs, but I have two thumbs.

One is full length, it is it's fused.

Uh, that was another thing that was kind of an issue was getting the bones to heal because the bones that he was able to save, you know, had been kind of carbonized or burnt, and now we're trying to bring them back to life and have them live.

So they were, there was no kind of, it was just saving what you could.

It wasn't like, oh, let's create a joint, let's put a flexor tendon in here.

It was let's just, you know, kind of save what we can.

So I have one full-length thumb and I have one tiny little thumb.

It he was able to kind of create and and save.

It's uh I told him, you know, if I have thumbs, it will be a miracle.

And he looked at me and said, no, it will be silence.

And maybe it's a bit of both.

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Well, I mentioned earlier that there's obviously two aspects of healing there's physical and emotional.

How did you deal with the emotional aspect of healing during this process?

SPEAKER_04: That was a tough one.

Uh you feel very, even though I had the support of Adam and you know, my parents uh who were were far away, but you know, my Adam would Skype them on a daily basis, and family and other family, my sister and her family and and friends, you feel very alone going through something like this.

With all the resources, with all the love, it's you feel alone because in the end of the day, you're the one that has to wake up and go to bed different.

You know, you're the one that has to make it work that your life just changed.

And I could see that I could go into a really dark space with this, and I could be very, I could choose that kind of lone lone path and be isolated and have that life of pity and you know, jump right into that dark pit of despair that was right in front of me.

Or I couldn't, I couldn't do that.

I had that choice, and it was a hard choice to make.

But one of the things that drove me was that people were helping me, a doctor was helping me when someone said that they weren't gonna help me or couldn't help me.

And if if I could stay somewhat positive, if I could believe in, you know, if we put everything into this, that maybe there'll be something I can make work someday, whether it's in a restaurant, whether it's climbing, something, um, if I could focus on that opposed to the darkness, that I I knew that I would have a better outcome.

Uh, and I was, I don't know how I knew that, but I just knew it.

And I also was relying on so many people around me.

Like I couldn't brush my teeth, I couldn't go to the bathroom, I couldn't brush my hair, I couldn't get dressed, I couldn't, without your hands, there's a lot of things you can't do.

And I was so reliant on everyone to help me, you know, from the outstanding nursing staff to the uh to people who visited me.

And, you know, I knew if I went into that dark space, it wouldn't be easy to help someone who's in that dark space.

And I knew I needed all the help I could get.

So that was another reason why I just knew I couldn't, I couldn't go there.

So luckily enough, I was able to kind of mentally understand that.

And then there was, okay, I have all of these things going for me, really, you know, which is hard to see when when things are aren't really going for you, right?

You know, when everything is real shitty, it's hard to see the things you do have, the blessings you have.

And um, I really held on to those and steered myself as best as I could into a positive state.

And um, it wasn't an easy state to stay in.

And when I'm talking positive, it's not like I was like the head of the chair committee.

It was just like I wasn't miserable and mean to everyone around me, you know.

And, you know, I had a lot of things to tackle.

I had to forgive myself uh for making this mistake, you know.

The only the only person that landed me right here was me.

And uh I had to tackle that.

And I had to, you know, learn what to lament and what not to lament when and when to do that, you know.

So I couldn't, I couldn't lament that climbing was over for me yet.

I I just didn't want to let myself do that.

So I just had to put it away, I had to put it in a box, and I had to, you know, continuously put it back in a box and continuously try to close the lid on that box because I knew thinking about it wasn't gonna help me right then and there get any better.

But I also knew if I said, that's it, it's over for me, I will never climb again, that wasn't going to lead me to a healthy recovery either.

unknown: Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: So it was it was challenging.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

Wow.

How did your husband handle all of it?

Because I know that it's it's hard on family also.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.

You're not you feel alone, but you're not alone.

Everyone else's life around you, and everyone who loves you is is hurting right there with you.

Like I said, I'd love for him to even write a chapter or something.

I could never never get that to happen.

But um, you know, he was he was steadfast, he was strong, he was so supportive.

I never had, I was so fortunate, right?

I mean, some people don't have this in their lives, some people go through something traumatic and you know, don't have that support.

And I was so happy uh and relieved that when I looked into his eyes, I knew he wasn't going anywhere.

I knew this wasn't, yes, it was going to change our lives, but I knew it wasn't going to change us or our love for each other.

And I was so lucky to have that.

And how he got through it, I he just put his head down, I guess, and just took kind of one day at a time and just um and supported me as best as he could.

But he was also, you know, a human, and I respected that.

I didn't take advantage of it.

I didn't want him to sacrifice everything he loved just because of what I was doing either, which hopefully helped the fact that I saw that I hope helped him carry the burden that he was carrying as well.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

Wow.

Well, I want to at this point, I guess, circle back around because this happened in the midst of you trying to open a restaurant.

Obviously, I know the restaurant happened, and so how do you get back on the horse and and keep going after enduring such a truly life-changing accident?

SPEAKER_04: Sometimes looking back on it, I don't know how I did it, but I did it, and I'm thankful.

And I I kind of feel like maybe I didn't have too much of a choice because that loan finally came through.

Like, really, I they were signing loan papers while I was that first week in the hospital.

So I'm like, well, I own the building, it's already gutted.

You know, people had committed to be partners with me.

They had, you know, quit their jobs or put in their notice that they were, you know, X amount of time and um they were done and they were opening, you know, a restaurant with me.

So I I felt this huge obligation on me too.

I couldn't really hit pause on life while I like, you know, figured out if I was gonna have thumbs or not.

Well, I grappled with my you know mental challenges and darkness and depression and all of that.

I just I didn't, in a way, it's great that I didn't have the luxury to just kind of go further down the rabbit hole of me.

And I had something I had to do, and that was to open the restaurant.

I had to do it for the fact that it was a building that my family invested in and their finances were tied to it.

I had to do it for the people who quit their jobs and believed in me and said, sure, you know, we'll be sweat equity partners and come in and make this work with you.

And I had to do it for my community, you know, I had already taken all of these steps and.

It's something I really wanted to do and in the end I had to do it for me as well. 'Cause I just didn't want to quit.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, to be honest with you, I mean, if we want to look in in this big picture of things like it truly I would imagine could in some ways be kind of you're saving grace.

I mean, yeah, this happened while you were building the restaurant, but it's because of the restaurant that probably you're where you are today because it gave you that that drive, that purpose to have to keep going.

SPEAKER_04: A hundred percent.

It did.

And it was a great distraction along the way because it's like, okay, well, um, you know, I can't just continue, you know, or live in a pity party, right?

I've got to pull up those big girl pants and I've got to interview people for a point of sale today.

I've got to look at the light fixtures, I've got to decide the paint on the wall.

I, you know, from A to Z still hadn't been done yet.

It was all still swirling of thoughts and dreams that needed to come out of my head and into reality.

Now we were really getting into that reality stage.

And so it did, it was a great distraction.

You know, when I thought about, oh, am I ever going to climb again?

It's like, well, you know what?

Shut the lid on that box because what what color are you going to put the paint, you know, of on the walls?

What are the bathroom wallpaper going to be like?

What's the floor going to be like?

Where's the bar?

Where, you know, where are all these little components that are so important that you know you have to decide along the way.

So it really gave me another outlet, it gave me another focus, and it it did help save me for sure.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.

Now, talking about the other the passion, climbing, did climbing ever get to come back into the story?

SPEAKER_04: It did.

Surprisingly enough, there were many days that I never thought it would, and it did come back.

It took a lot, you know.

I got I got sent home, and you know, I like I said, I my physical therapy was move my wrists.

So I was like, okay, climbing, still definitely out of the picture.

Looking at the skin grass healing, still, you know, completely out of the picture.

But as I said, you know, you eventually things do start to heal.

And being a climber, you can't help but test it and say, Oh, well, can I put my fingers on here?

Like, will that work?

And uh slowly and little by little it came back.

And initially it was just um some friends of mine who make climbing holds down in Boulder.

Um, at that point, um, they make climbing boards now too, but at that point, uh, it was even before the boards, and they were just making holds.

They invited me down to you know see what holds might work for my hands.

We came home and Adam screwed a handful of holes into the side of our stairs, wooden stairs at home.

And I uh that they're like right in the middle of our living room, and I would just stand there with my feet on the ground and just touch them, you know, just like, okay, this is how these fingers would now lay here.

Um, because you know, I have index fingers that are natural length, which makes it interesting to see how the shorter fingers are gonna come in and join the party.

So initially it was just simple as that of just standing there and and touching holds, which I mean, at first I didn't want to touch anything.

So it was uh obviously gradual baby steps there.

And then little by little I'm you know was out on our climbing wall and I'm like, okay, now I'm gonna hold on to these holds that are on the wall and see if I can put one of my my feet onto the climbing wall as well and put all my weight on these fingertips.

It was excruciating beyond I I you know, kind of vomit style.

But eventually you just kind of those nerve endings that are so raw that are there, you learn how to kind of bypass that pain.

And sometimes the pain decreases on its own by toughening it up, but then you know, I still have fingers that are kind of just feel just as raw as um they did that first year.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

Wow.

No, uh about how long after the accident would it take before you got to that point where you could start trying to climb.

SPEAKER_04: My first climb was on our wall was in October.

Uh if anyone listening wants to see along, all of these videos are actually on my website with a lot of graphic, horrible images from um the hospital.

So a warning, there is a warning.

But um yeah, I was able to pull onto our climbing wall and you know, move my hand to the next hold and grab it.

And that took a lot mentally and physically, because mentally, you know, your brain is telling you, giving you warning signals like don't do this, you don't have fingers, it's going to be painful.

Like, what you know, what on earth are you doing?

So you you get all these warning signals, and you know, that you your body's trying to protect itself from what it just went through, and stubborn enough, you know, you have to override those warning signals and those brain challenges that are getting thrown at you to even make yourself want to move your hand and grab that hold.

And then when you do, you have to endure the amount of pain that just shot through your whole being because you did grab that hold.

And it's like this weird thing where it's like this this kind of like hor horrific challenge, but you're so happy because it filled you with joy, and it's one step closer to getting back to something you love to do.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: It it took a while.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, no, no doubt.

And at the same point, I mean, I again just have to say, like what it just says about you, the amazing just soul that you are, the person that you are.

And I mean, I I couldn't help, but I was sitting here thinking, I thought, you know, is her last name really and true strong?

Or is that something she branded and changed her last name?

Because I'm like, it sums up everything.

SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's it's it's by marriage, really and truly.

Adam's last name.

So yeah, we we didn't we didn't change it in the act during the accident.

SPEAKER_02: Okay, because I I was thinking, I'm like, I'm like, because I'm like, I have a feeling if it wasn't really strong, she probably would have just gone with badass if she was changing it, you know.

But I'm like, I don't know, it could be her middle name, Melissa badass strong, you know.

SPEAKER_03: That's it.

I'm going to the documents.

Like, all right, we're we're we're we're gonna get badass as a middle name.

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, I love it, I love it.

Well, well, where I want to kind of wrap up today is what has connected us is the fact that is if you're not crazy enough to open a restaurant, is if you're not crazy and badass enough to get back to climbing after such a life just changing injury, you then decide, you know what, I'm gonna start sharing my story.

I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna start going on podcasts.

Where did that idea come from to write a book?

SPEAKER_04: That piece of literature there that I decided, you know, not to continue on with that passion that I had, you know, I always loved reading and I always loved writing.

In school, I was more of a critical writer.

And then over the years it adapted and I I just really enjoyed writing.

I wrote being like a sponsored rock climber, I had a blog, so I would always be blogging and I would always be writing.

Um, I wrote for different climbing magazines.

So it was always kind of a part of me, and it was always, I think, just another part of me too that I used to heal.

So I started writing pretty early on initially.

It was very matter-of-fact, very cold, very distant.

I still didn't know the outcome, right?

Like it's hard to, it's hard to get uh optimism in there when you're just still kind of day-to-day, what the hell is happening to me and what's going to happen to me, and what is this gonna look like.

But I I just I wrote kind of throughout the whole thing, especially, of course, once I could actually have control of my hands and um use them again.

And I always knew that I wanted to write my story and share it, basically because I knew that what I went through was challenging and horrific, and I was making my way through it, and potentially maybe this could help someone go through a challenging time in their life.

Because, like I say, you don't have to burn your hands off to have a bad day, and you know it, you know.

We have really bad things that happen in life, and you know, hopefully by sharing our stories, we can help people that might be navigating a challenging time.

So for some reason, I always knew that I wanted to do it, especially once I saw the outcome was okay, I opened the restaurant, I am climbing.

You know, let's let's let's bring this light into someone else's life.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Your your book, the title, Climbing Through.

What does that title mean?

SPEAKER_04: I climbed through it, you know, just like most everyone does going through a challenging time, you you get through it.

Sometimes I felt like I pushed my way through because I I had to get better, I had to open the restaurant, but I also got back to climbing, you know, so I really was able to kind of climb my way through the the challenges, the pain, the suffering that April 17th, April 2nd, 2017 opened up to me.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

And it kind of goes back full circle to where we started our conversation of being the the luckiest, unlucky person you know.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.

So thankful to be here, right?

And then I get to try.

It's really cool.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, well, for the person who's been listening today who would love to get a copy of your book, who maybe would would love to visit your restaurant, would you mind just sharing with us ways in which we can find your book, find your restaurant, connect with you?

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, for sure.

I do steer a lot of people towards my website because it's everything is on there, which is my name, and it's really my name.

MelissaiStrong.com.

And it's funny because I stands for a middle name that was never given to me at birth.

So maybe it really should be melissa badassstrong.com, but um it's melissaeyestrong.com.

I chose Irene as my Catholics get a confirmation name.

So I chose Irene as my confirmation name.

So it is my actual middle initial.

A lot of people read it as Melissa is strong.

And I'm like, no, no, MelissaIStrong.com.

And you'll see links to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, BAM, Walmart, Hudson Booksellers, Bookshop, a lot of online places.

There it's also hopefully at your local library or local bookstore.

I love telling people go to your local bookstore and ask them to carry a coffee because they can get it, no problem.

And then you're helping a local business like Bird and Gym.

And that is the restaurant in Estes Park.

Uh, in 2022, we opened the Bird's Nest, which is a bakery in Pizzeria, right across the street from Bird and Gym coffee shop.

So you can get coffee and a sandwich on your way into the park, and uh on your way out, pick up a pizza or go to Bird and Gym to eat dinner.

Bird and Gym is seven days a week lunch and dinner.

And Bird's Nest is also seven days a week.

Opens 6 a.m.

to get your coffee fix.

So that's all in Estes Park and on the website.

There's links to the restaurant.

There's also links to see the renovations so you can kind of see what they were and um how they changed with uh all the literal blood, sweat, and tears that were put into burden gym.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

Wow.

Well, Melissa, you you are truly amazing.

You are truly strong, you are truly badass, and with now basically two restaurants, an author doing all you are.

We might even say you're a little bit insane.

Um but um but but only in the best way.

You you truly inspire me.

I love your story for the minute.

I I heard your story.

I knew I wanted to have you on my podcast.

I knew I I wanted to just get to soak up some of the energy that you possess.

It's truly inspiring.

And so uh in the most heartfelt way possible.

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be here on my on my show.

SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much for for having me.

It means it really means a lot.

I really appreciate it from one house to another.

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.

I love it, love it.

And for you listening today, please be sure that you check out today's show notes for all of the links, for all the resources mentioned by Melissa.

You can also just head on over to the website gritgraceinspiration.com slash Melissa Dash Strong.

And you can find all of that information there as well.

Until next time, my friend, if nothing else, let today inspire you to just get out there.

And whatever challenges you might be facing, they're just there so that you can overcome them.

So, my friend, get out there, do that, and I'll see you back here next week for another episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

SPEAKER_01: There's a version of me I barely know.

Back on that east coast, on go, start in the air, just killing time, letting my day slip right on by gym class, dread and a missing change.

Same old story, just a different day.

No idea what I was really made for.

Just dreaming of some way.

I'd never been before.

So I packed up my eye, heading for something more.

Headed down a new or in 17 and wild takes pretty dreams and a reckless style.

Fell in love with the let's get away.

Packed up a life that we never get.

Flip a through towns like a few times.

Couldn't turn back to the mountain town, call like a whisper low.

You don't know what I was dripping.

Good down, couldn't have a lot of time, too fast.

And the truth is all you just got a little bit, and I'll talk to the two out.

I don't know that for the voice, for you like that.

When you're out of town, then the truth is hard.

You just gotta live and try.

No way out nowhere you are.

Just a heartbeat say choose your side, dark light.

Don't get both you either let go or you hold and I don't know why I'm still here tonight, but I chose a road.

Now I don't taste roads, I just walk them through and start.

Tells me why it's true.

Ain't no waste of days, ain't no waste of time when you learn what it means just to be alive.

Yes, it's a cat.