“Tell me that I can’t and I’ll show you that I can”
Double amputee conquers life’s challenges by summiting mountains
Four years after her life was torn apart, Mandy Horvath found peace above the clouds.
Since she set out on a June evening four days before, Horvath had fought the wicked terrain and poor visibility of Pikes Peak on nothing more than her two hands. Her swollen palms and raging frustration attempted to keep her leashed to the trailhead below. But Horvath was no stranger to fighting the uphill battle.
Her legs, after all, had been nonexistent for nearly four years.
At the time, the loss of her limbs in a train accident had devastated her not only physically but mentally. Climbing out of her deep depression had brought her to Colorado to scale mountains — both literal and figurative — to confront her new realities and find the strength to start anew.
Pikes Peak had nothing on her.
Mandy Horvath grew up in Smithville, Mo., as the oldest of two kids. A rocky relationship with her parents pushed her to graduate from high school at the age of 16 and move out of her childhood home to work as a chef in a local restaurant.
She was 21 years old the day the world went black. While camping with some friends outside Steele City in southeast Nebraska in late July 2014, she says, she was drugged while at a local bar. Left on the railroad tracks unconscious, Horvath was struck by a train traveling 50 mph, losing both of her legs above the knee
Police assumed it was a suicide attempt. And the lifethreatening nature of her injuries meant that her blood was not tested for the presence of drugs.
“I woke up in the ambulance and was like a little kid threatening a temper tantrum, kicking my legs,” Horvath said.
Horvath’s heart stopped three times within the first 24 hours of being hit by the train, she said, and was given a 50 percent chance to live after being placed in a medically-induced coma.
Although Horvath survived the night, the traumatic amputation of her legs meant routine treatments were not an option. Over the next year, Horvath underwent intense therapy and suffered from severe medical complications time and time again. On Christmas Day 2015, an additional part of her legs was amputated to prevent further injury and ensure a clean cut with hopes of a smoother recovery.
In and out of the hospital, Horvath succumbed to a deep depression.
“I wasn’t sure if I’d ever walk, work, have a boyfriend or drive again,” Horvath said.
She was taking 22 medications, had gained weight and was at risk of kidney and liver failure.
It took her dad’s tough love and insistence that she was on the road to nowhere for Horvath to turn her life around. She checked herself into rehab to get off her medications. Around the same time she got a tattoo scrawled across her chest that read: “Tell me that I can’t and I’ll show you that I can.”
She was ready for a fresh start. In January 2016, Horvath moved to Colorado where she is now a student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Despite her initial fears, she returned to the kitchen at a steakhouse and is now exploring the possibility of opening a new restaurant.
In April, Horvath took her new “I can” outlook on life to the next level, climbing the Manitou Incline in honor of Limb Loss Awareness month.
For anyone who has ever visited Manitou Springs, the Incline is hard to miss. Constructed out of railroad ties and gaining nearly 2,000 feet in elevation in less than a mile, the 2,744-step trail has been called the “holy grail of cardio” by Visit Pikes Peak. And it goes without saying that it is far from ADA accessible.
Without training, Horvath hoisted herself up using only her upper-body in five and a half hours.
“I thought people were going to laugh at me and some did,” Horvath said. “But a lot of people were thoroughly accepting of my choice to be a little crazy.”
Her victory in April was only the start.
She conquered Pikes Peak in June, and Achilles International, a nonprofit that works to enable and empower disabled athletes, has invited Horvath to scale Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania next October.