75-year-old woman crawls home through 'middle of nowhere' for 14 hours after breaking leg in crash

EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. -- A 75-year-old Colorado woman is recovering after breaking her leg in a crash and spending the night outdoors in her rural community.

It was an ordeal of nearly 14 hours of fighting through pain and crawling home before Charlene Kirby was found, KMGH reported.

"We're halfway between Vail and Steamboat Springs, in the middle of nowhere," Kirby said.

But this community in Eagle County has always been home for Kirby.

"It's my life. I love this land," Kirby said.

It is her little slice of heaven.

"I can sing at the top of my voice. Nobody hears me. I can cuss out my neighbor. Nobody hears me," Kirby said.

At 75 years old, Kirby has made a name for herself in the small community of McCoy.

"For 25 years, I was the only first responder up here. I finally became an ER nurse, yeah," Kirby said. "I've always been really calm. Well, I should take that back. That was a lie. I had a terrible temper when I was younger."

Her career and hometown prepared her for one night in early June.

"So, my grandson's getting married here on our ranch. And so, I was getting my garden planted and cleaning up my yard," Kirby said. "Everybody was gone for the day, and I looked at it, and I thought, 'You know what, I'm just going to take that up there.' So, I hooked up the trailer to the side by side, and I went up to where I was going to dump this," Kirby said.

Then, her trailer jackknifed.

"Miracle number one, the trailer jackknifed again and then, side by side, did not run over the top of me, but when I fell, I knew I broke my femur. I could feel it," Kirby said. "You're really not supposed to move a femur, because you could, you could sever your femoral artery."

But Kirby crawled.

"I've always been that way. Let's get her done," Kirby said.

She crawled from around 7 p.m. that night to 9 a.m. the next morning.

"Fourteen hours. People asked me if I did the Army crawl, and I said, 'No, I think it was more like the inch worm,'" Kirby said. "Where that cell phone pole is, that's almost where I got to."

Her son found her and called an ambulance.

"I had dirt in my nose, in my ears, on my teeth, in my hair, all down the front of me," Kirby said. "I broke it straight across here. And then this is in pieces. This is free floating."

She spent three weeks rehabilitating her leg.

"'How in the world did you survive that night?' And I'm like, there's no doubt in my mind. That's because God was with me the whole time," Kirby said.

And Kirby was back home in time for the wedding at her ranch.

"The doctor said, well, you'll be at the wedding. You just won't be dancing. I was like, watch me," Kirby said.

There's no missing the resilience that calls this place home.

"Is it an easy life? It's not an easy life, but it's a rewarding life," Kirby said.

Kirby says while she was rehabilitating, a former patient came by.

That patient wanted to say "thank you" for Kirby's help decades ago.

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