Firefighters are battling a wildfire on Ophir Pass in San Miguel County near the town of Ophir.
The Ophir Pass fire, about 50 feet by 100 feet in size, is burning on U.S. Forest Service land, according to the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office.
On Tuesday afternoon a helicopter was dispatched from Montrose to work on the fire along with USFS crews and local firefighters. No structures are threatened.
The fire is running away from the town and officials asked people to stay away from the area. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
At 5:30 p.m. Tuesday the sheriff’s office said: “The fire is under control but not yet technically contained — there is a line around the fire and firefighters are working on hotspots. Firefighters will be on scene overnight.”
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For nearly an hour, Lisa Ludwig had worked her way through a physical therapy session led by a therapist in Nebraska who was watching, instructing and encouraging her via Zoom video. After some exercises in the living room of her home high on a mountain near Evergreen, she’d gone outside for walking drills on a wrap-around deck with a stunning view of Mount Evans, cracking jokes and teasing her husband, Dave.
Still suffering from cognitive deficits caused by a traumatic brain injury that she sustained on Father’s Day last year when she was struck by a hit-and-run driver while cycling with friends, she took slow, halting steps — with a walker, with two poles, with one hand on the railing of the deck, and then hand-in-hand with Dave.
Suddenly Ludwig decided to try something that wasn’t on her PT program last Tuesday. And for the first time in 359 days since she was rushed from a roadside trauma scene near El Rancho to St. Anthony Hospital where she lay in a coma for 19 days, Ludwig walked about 20 feet without the assistance of her walker, poles or Dave’s hand.
It was a memorable milestone and moment of freedom in a recovery that has included seven months of inpatient hospital care and five months of outpatient care.
“It makes me feel like, ‘Oh my God, maybe I am an athlete still, maybe I can go back to being like I used to be,'” said Ludwig, 62. “The progress and the improvement makes me feel hope that I can keep going.”
She still has a long struggle ahead, and may never be like she was before she was hit. Still, it was a precious moment.
“That was great,” said Dave. “I was super surprised. I didn’t think we were quite there yet.”
Father’s Day weekend this year marked a sad anniversary for the Ludwigs and for a second avid cyclist who was struck by another hit-and-run driver the day before Lisa. Greg Johnson was hit on West 32nd Avenue that Saturday morning, not far from his home in Wheat Ridge.
When Ludwig arrived at the emergency room the next day, Johnson was in ICU at the same hospital, following the first of three surgeries for his injuries. He was coming out of anesthesia, imagining spiders crawling on the ceiling because of the drugs he was on, but he distinctly remembers hearing nurses discussing Ludwig’s arrival.
Johnson was spared the cognitive injuries that continue to impair Ludwig 12 months later, but he had 21 broken bones, including both femurs and a broken pelvis. His right femur was shattered into more than 40 pieces. He still lives with pain from his injuries, can’t ride a bike and can’t bend his lower back because of steel rods that are holding his pelvis together. He longs to ride a bike, or simply to go fly fishing, but he’s still too unsteady on his feet to be confident walking beside a creek.
Ludwig suffered multiple fractures, including three ribs, a shoulder blade and two vertebrae. Because of the brain injury, she still needs physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. She and Dave moved to Colorado four years ago to take advantage of the outdoors, but now they are planning a move back to Massachusetts because she can no longer enjoy the things that brought them here.
“It was like my dream of retirement, but I wasn’t retired yet,” Lisa said of her time here before she was injured, when she routinely went on bike rides of 50 to 100 miles and did lots of hiking with her dog, a beloved Samoyed named Niko, that she since had to give up for adoption. “My friends would describe me as a crazy athlete. I loved to be active.”
The Ludwigs feel the justice system is letting them down. Six of the eight charges against the person who hit her have been dismissed by the district attorney for Jefferson and Gilpin counties in a plea deal that comes with a prison sentence of 10 to 20 years. Dave says that’s too lenient, and he hopes the judge rejects the deal at sentencing on June 26.
“The DA led us and Dave to believe that they cared about Dave’s wishes on behalf of his wife Lisa,” read a statement from Megan Hottman and Andrew Phillips, attorneys representing the Ludwigs in a firm known as TheCyclist-lawyer.com, which specializes in cycling cases. “Dave repeatedly asked the DA to take this matter to trial so that the community would hear more about it in the news, be able to attend and watch the trial, and to hopefully send the message that if you hit a cyclist, you’re going to stand trial for your actions. He wanted the driver to face a jury. Instead, over Dave’s wishes, the DA declined to set the case for trial and advanced the plea offer range of 10-20, from which the judge will decide the sentence.”
Johnson hasn’t seen justice done, either. The Colorado State Patrol investigated but no charges have been filed.
“They identified the vehicle through an anonymous tip, but there were multiple occupants and they all said they were too intoxicated to know who was driving,” said Johnson, who was hit around 7 a.m. “The owner of the vehicle was an uninsured, unlicensed 18-year-old, due to prior DUIs. There was no way of knowing if that was the individual who was driving the car.”
That’s upsetting to Phillips, an avid cyclist.
“So frustrating that they can’t figure that out, and that they aren’t able to discover the truth in that matter,” Phillips said. “It feels so unfair and so unjust.”
Johnson, 65, has had to endure lots of pain and physical hardships. He was in the hospital for five weeks and returned home the last week of July. At first, he spent most of his time laying on cushions spread out on the living room floor because it was the least painful position for enduring the surgical hardware in his back.
“We referred to it as my apartment, and I was just there all day, staring at the window,” Johnson said. “There was this really neat spider, called a cat-faced spider, that developed this big huge web. We called him Spidey. Every day he would come up and down, and that was my daily game, watching the spider come down and trap whatever bug was in his web.”
He was able to get around with a walker when he left the hospital. He began walking with crutches in September, and then with a cane in December. About a month ago, he started walking without the cane. He estimates he does more than three hours of physical therapy every day. He can walk about 3 miles at a time and rides an indoor bike trainer. He and his wife, Deb, say they’ve both experienced PTSD.
“I don’t know that I’ve had a day since June 18 last year that I haven’t had pain at some level of significance,” said Johnson, who had surgeries on both legs. “I mean, this (right) leg, it’s always a problem. And it’s always swollen. When I first get up in the morning, it feels like I’m walking on rocks. It’s always numb. It’s always burning from nerve pain, and from being swollen.”
Sometimes he has dreams in which he’s riding his bike.
“And I’m riding the way I used to ride,” Johnson said. “Just the other day I had a dream that I was coming down Robinson Hill Road, the backside of the Golden Gate area. I’ve had multiple dreams about riding my bike and it has really felt nice. Then I wake up.”
The Johnsons live near Lutheran Hospital, where he was taken before he was transferred to St. Anthony. Deb says it took a long time before she could drive by Lutheran without hyperventilating.
“I’m doing a lot better than I was,” Deb said. “I’ve just kind of allowed myself to feel all the things. It’s been hard. Greg is pretty brave, and I try to match that. But for a long time I had a broken heart. To see him so limited and suffering is very hard.”
Johnson, who used to ride to work at DIA three times a week — more than 30 miles each way — has approached his recovery with an athlete’s mentality. So has Ludwig.
“I want to get back to myself, I want to get back to doing what I was doing,” Lisa said. “I never sat there and thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m never going to get better.’ I just thought, ‘I’ve got to keep working at this. I’m going to get better. I’m going to be running and riding my bike.’ As crazy as I am, that’s how I think. I know I’m not realistic sometimes.”
She likes to say she’s a feisty Irish girl with a temper, but conversations with her are filled with laughter. She enjoys teasing Dave:
Dave: “Every morning, Lisa has to go on the treadmill, which is very hard for her.”
Lisa: “Why is it hard for me? I like it.”
Dave: “I know you do, but it’s still hard work. She just was able to do 14 minutes of walking at 1 mph, to maybe 1.2. She just started to do little inclines.”
Lisa: “Little inclines? I was doing 6% grade, that’s not little. See, I remember.”
Lisa punctuates those exchanges with laughs, and it’s evident how much she appreciates Dave caring for her 24/7.
“I am probably the luckiest woman in the world,” Lisa said. “I have probably the nicest, kindest, loving husband there is. He has done nothing but take great care of me. He’s always by me. He never gave up on me. He knows that I am persistent, and I will do everything I can to get better. But even if I didn’t, he would still care for me.
Stephen Brackett, co-founder of the band Flobots, is also the director of the 87 Foundation. The nonprofit is trying to revitalize Denver's downtown, starting with more support for the city's nighttime economy.
If you look at the big picture, it's such a mess, there's little coordination. This initiative may be helpful, but like you said, there are other factors that may negate the benefits. If only people could work together for everyone's benefit.
Here's my understanding. Currently in CO, you have 10 years from the commission of a felony sex crime on a minor to prosecute. The law that was sticken down allowed victims of abuse that reached outside of that 10-year window starting in 1960 to come forward and sue. I'm not a lawyer, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Victims of childhood abuse who brought lawsuits under the new law likely will not see their claims go forward, said Christopher Jackson, an appellate lawyer at Holland and Hart who was not involved in the Colorado Supreme Court case but reviewed the opinion. The ruling means that the law no longer applies, even to ongoing lawsuits.
“They’re stuck where they were before,” he said. “…If a plaintiff can put forward a good reason to say, ‘Even under the old law, we had an argument as to why we could bring this claim today,’ then you could settle or figure things out from there. But if they were relying entirely on this new law, they’re not going to have a lot of options.”
It was not immediately clear Tuesday how many lawsuits were filed under the new law.
Avery, the attorney who is representing several survivors, said most cases brought under the new law will now be tossed out. He added that several other states have opened up similar look-back windows, and those laws have not been struck down.
“I think it’s sad that Colorado is such a conservative outlier jurisdiction,” he said. “Most of our clients are recognizing that people around the country are getting remedies, and here in Colorado we are not. We’re not on the same footing as all the other states that have considered the issue. And I think that makes it double tough.”
Lawmakers should pursue additional legislation or a constitutional amendment to allow for such claims in the future, he said.
Fields said she plans to look into options for additional legislation that would offer similar civil remedies that do comply with the state constitution.
Information in this post is NOT medical advice; it’s provided for educational purposes only. Please consult with a doctor and/or a mental health professional for any medication changes....
Thank you for such an insightful comment! Lots of great info here.
Drugs affecting serotonin should be used with extreme caution. These primarily include SSRIs SNRIs but also some drugs you might not expect.
Definitely agree. I may add a link to some antidepressant research in this post for educational purposes.
My opinion that is purely anecdotal to my experiences trying to find the right treatment is that providers only seem to care about preventing mania and rarely seem concerned about all the other facets of mental health once the BD is slapped on my chart.
I feel this so much. I'm so lucky to have my psychiatrist who sees me holistically. I also have ADHD and take dextroamphetamine. My life changed in an instant when I started on stimulants, I actually could function. They have not triggered any manic episodes; I'm also on lamotrigine, and it keeps me pretty stable.
Thanks for creating this! I'm just about to be fully licensed as a clinical social worker, and I'm an LMFT candidate as well. I'm in private practice where I see adults who struggle with trauma, bipolar disorder or relationship issues. Trained in EMDR, ART, EFT, Gottman.
Wildfire breaks out in San Miguel County on Ophir Pass [PAYWALL - ARTICLE IN COMMENTS] (www.denverpost.com)
You've been added to the sidebar of /c/bipolardisorder@lemmy.world! (lemmy.world)
Hello and thank you for creating this community!
Superbowl chaos (lemmy.world)
Therapist Directories
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By a lot (lemmy.world)
A place to post news and have discussions about the housing crisis, its effect on people who are priced out, and what the future has in store.
Post news, share opinions and discuss potential solutions. Change begins with every new person....
We adopted Crackle when she was 11. She gave us three amazing years. May she be remembered as the bestest girl. (lemmy.world)
Nuggets' coach Michael Malone gets a tattoo of Maxie the Miner holding the Larry O'Brien trophy (lemmy.world)
Two cyclists, both badly injured in hit-and-runs, struggle with what they’ve lost [PAYWALL - ARTICLE IN COMMENTS] (www.denverpost.com)
TSA starts facial recognition program at Denver International Airport (www.cbsnews.com)
The technology is currently voluntary for flyers.
Non-profit organization trying to make downtown Denver safer after violent week (www.cbsnews.com)
Stephen Brackett, co-founder of the band Flobots, is also the director of the 87 Foundation. The nonprofit is trying to revitalize Denver's downtown, starting with more support for the city's nighttime economy.
Fuel spill and cleanup in Centennial shuts down stretch of East Caley Avenue [PAYWALL - ARTICLE IN BODY] (www.denverpost.com)
ARTICLE TEXT...
Between 15% and 20% of people with bipolar disorder also meet criteria for obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD symptoms tend to worsen during depression and improve during mania. (www.psychiatrictimes.com)
Colorado Supreme Court strikes down law that gave victims of decades-old childhood sexual abuse a window to file lawsuits [PAYWALL - ARTICLE IN COMMENTS] (www.denverpost.com)
Ireland Playboy magazine cover, 1953 (i.imgur.com)
ULPT: If you need to fart at the supermarket, do it in the cheese aisle
Preferably near the French cheeses. Anyone who smells it will think the blue cheeses are especially pungent today.
Back-to-back earthquakes shake Southern Colorado (www.denverpost.com)
A list of commonly prescribed medications (lemmy.world)
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Welcome/Intro
Hello! I wanted to create a place where people can come to share experiences and ask any questions they would like about therapy in general....