Never could I have imagined that a scary event or a near miss would end up being the best thing ever. Now, it wasn’t just a snap happening but a slow series of events over time that brings me where I am now.

About a week after Thanksgiving and just moved into my home here in this mountain subdivision, the Bar K Ranch with my two children Erik and Deanna. They both thought I was nuts to be living up here in the foothills in Boulder County, Colorado. But honestly, we just moved from one mountain to another. I was going through a divorce and we had to move from our relatively newly built home way off of Flagstaff Road. Now that was remote compared to this place. I had received a packet of information about the covenants here and an invitation of sorts letting me know that for a mere $100 per year I could enjoy the 3 lakes and horse grazing pastures and a rickety stable and a total of 56 acres of common lands for hiking and biking.

Deanna who was 7 years old invited her friend Heidi up for the weekend. Erik who was 17 was visiting his friends in Boulder. I read there was a Bar K Association meeting at the home of the Rozinek family, who live off of Rock Lake Road. This subdivision was basically a one way in and one way out off of Rock Lake Road.

I had met one new neighbor already in my first week here , a firefighter named Bob Larimore. He pulled my car out of the ditch down the road when I slipped into it turning the corner with my Toyota 4-Runner filled with groceries mostly for the Thanksgiving feast I had planned. I felt that this neighborhood was a great place to raise my children as a single mom. This kind man a year later became a 911 call himself, but that’s another chapter. I went to this meeting and met quite a few interesting folks besides the hosts. One of these neighbors was Marilyn Fagerstrom, who was the battalion chief of the fire station less than a mile from here. She seemed leery of me but when she found out I was an RN she said, “we could use a good medical person on our fire department”. That was a huge hook for me as well. The hosts, Paul and Claire Rozinek, also on the fire department, told me that fire training was starting the next week down in Jamestown about five miles below here. Lefthand Fire Protection District was sharing a station down there with the Jamestown Fire Department. I was excited that perhaps this move wasn’t going to be as scary or lonely as I feared and I left the meeting with some hope.

Upon my return, the girls were whining that they were bored. It was a really lovely warm day for November and I suggested they go on an adventure walk with Indi, our Jack Russell terrier out behind the huge rock outcroppings behind our home. They took off and I got right to work unpacking more of the many boxes. There was a great big pot of turkey soup on the stove simmering away. I had planned a great supper to share with Heidi’s mom Jane, who worked at, of all places, Rocky Flats where they manufactured plutonium pits that ended up being nuclear weapons. Now that’s scarier than my job as a critical care nurse.

It was starting to get a little dark when Heidi’s Mom arrived. She of course asked where were the girls so I explained they were romping around behind the house. I yelled out for Deanna and she yelled out for Heidi. We did not hear a reply and started actually screaming for them as well as Indy. Immediately, I became alarmed and got right on the phone and called the Rozinek’s. Paul told me to hang up and dial 911 and he would assemble the neighbors to start a search. Immediately the cars were patrolling the roads in the Bar K yelling out these girls and the dog’s names.

Within minutes I had a flurry of people in my house asking lots of scary questions like,” what were they wearing?” Sadly, they only had on light jackets since the weather earlier was unusually warm. But now the temps were falling as they usually do at around 9000 feet above sea level. They taped a huge map on my wall next to the dining room table and declared this was now “Bar K command”. This middle-aged gal, Marilyn, asked me in a sort of snarky tone, what are you going to do with all these dishes.” I came back with “feed all you people some homemade turkey soup.” That broke the ice, so to speak and I felt redeemed somewhat. Afterall, I am looking like a neglectful mom here.

These big clunky radios called Bendix Kings were squawking and more folks showed up asking if I could give them articles of clothing from both girls. Search and rescue group known as Rocky Mountain Rescue were arriving and they even suggested a piece of aircraft with night vision be deployed.

This gruff fellow who was the Chief, Dave Nyquist told us that” if the girls were lost they would find them, but if they were abducted that would be a different story.” Oh my God, that is when my knees felt they were buckling under me. Amazingly, within a few minutes those radios started to really get busy with the best news ever… “We got ‘em!” Found out these adventurous little girls and their guard dog Indy were all the way down in Jamestown. It was truly a miracle as the route they took led them down a steep rocky route next to James Creek most of the way. This route includes many abandoned mine holes. The Chief told me they would be brought up here and I should teach them to “Hug a Tree” next time they get too far from home. They were cold and hungry when they arrived back and we asked why did you go down that way. Their reply, “we saw the lights down there so we went that way.” Also mentioned that they “rested on a big rock with Indy because it felt warm.” They were gone for over five hours!

They indeed were tired and scared but all said and done this turned out to be the beginning of a new life here. I will fast forward this and tell you that I not only became a structure firefighter, a wildland firefighter and an EMT in less than a year. But I was just a newbie and my adventures as the Fire Woman from Hell had just begun.