In this week’s episode, our storytellers face life-or-death moments they’ll never forget.

Part 1: On a trip to Colombia for a research conference, biologist Stephanie Galla must rely on her fight-or-flight instincts when she is cornered by a mugger with a knife.

Stephanie Galla is an Assistant Professor in avian biology at Boise State University. She is interested in interdisciplinary conservation efforts for species in decline, and in particular, how genomic technologies can inform management decisions. Using DNA, her research team explores whether birds (including grouse and raptors) have the adaptive capacity to be resilient in a changing world. Outside of her everyday work life, she enjoys bird watching, making art, taking care of her backyard chickens, and watching TV with her husband and cat.

Part 2: An ordinary day takes a shocking turn when Kim Weaver is struck by lightning.

Kim Weaver is a long-time storyteller and occasional guest host at Story Night in Bremerton, but she cut her storytelling chops as a high school math and engineering teacher. (No matter how much you heckle, you will not be as brutal as a room full of Algebra I students.) She has also told plenty of ocean tales as a Science Communication Fellow aboard the E/V Nautilus. Kim lives in Poulsbo, Washington where her primary role is herding a small flock of corgis, but her actual job is providing STEM and EdTech support to teachers throughout the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas.

Episode Transcript

Part 1

I was 30 years old and I was doing my PhD in Christchurch, New Zealand, studying avian conservation genetics. I had this really awesome opportunity to go to South America, to go to Cartagena, Colombia to present our team's research to an international audience.

As someone who loves birds, the idea of going to South America was just so exciting, because there were all these new species of birds that I could see. The one that I was most excited about was a sword billed hummingbird. And for those who don't know, this is a bird whose bill is just about as long as the rest of its body. How cool would it be to see that? I was just beyond excited.

Stephanie Galla shares her story at The Lookout Room at Boise State University in September 2024. Photo by Joe Rodman.

So I bought a field guide to South American birds and it was comically thick. And on the plane ride to Cartagena, I pored through this field guide so much that I hardly slept. And because I'm also a very deeply conscientious person, I remember not drinking nearly enough water on this flight because I didn't want to bother the people next to me for a trip to the bathroom.

When I arrived in Cartagena, the first thing I did is I really had to go pee, so I found a bathroom first thing right away. I also tried connecting with my friends and fellow PhD students who were arriving on another flight. They were supposed to arrive within the hour. But I heard from them that their flight in Chile had been canceled and they wouldn't be in Cartagena for another day. So I was all alone in a new city, at least for a little while.

Something that you should know about me is I'm the type of person who I doubt myself quite a lot. I remember in this moment, I felt that little bit of self doubt creep in. I was wondering, “Do I have what it takes to make it on my own in a new city all alone?” But I was able to convince myself pretty quickly that I had all the tools that I needed to be okay.

So I dusted off my high school Spanish and I got a cab to our hotel. I remember the hotel was so sweet and small and locally owned with really lovely people. When I arrived, I felt very much ready for check in. I was so dehydrated. I was so gross from this flight and so tired.

After speaking with a front desk person in my very rusty Spanish, I also learned that they wouldn't have my room ready for a couple of hours. He said that he was happy to take my big roller bag. He didn't have room for my backpack necessarily, but he recommended that I go explore the city for a little while.

I remember again feeling a little hesitant, you know, will I be okay in this new city alone? But I also knew that if I was able to get a lay of the land, it might help before my friends arrived.

So I took my first steps out into this new and vibrant city. I remember smelling the ocean breeze. The ocean was just a couple of blocks away. And I remember seeing friends and families on the streets in these really bright outfits with loose fabrics.

As I was walking farther from the hotel, I experienced maybe for the first time in my life a really strong gut instinct. My gut was telling me if ever there was a target for something bad to happen in a new city, I was a really good target in this moment.

At first, I was really surprised by feeling this gut instinct. I'm normally such a positive person. But on reflection, I knew exactly where this instinct was coming from. It was the voice of my mom just ringing in my ears.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, when I was a kid, my mom really loved TV shows like America's Most Wanted and Dateline. She was really obsessed with true crime before it was a thing. We grew up outside of Chicago, a.k.a. the murder capital of the USA, so my mom had a lot of inspiration for things that could go wrong.

And when I was a kid, she would teach us lessons, what does it mean to be safe in a city no matter where in the world you are. I knew that being a woman alone wasn't a good start. Neither was looking like such a tourist. The turtle backpack really was not a great touch.

So, in this moment, I really leaned into these weird lessons that my mom taught me growing up as a kid and I started formulating these plans in the unlikely event that something bad would happen. Like, I thought to myself, “What do you do if somebody grabs your wrist?” And I thought in response, “Okay, I would take my knee to their groin, stomp their feet, push their arm away and I would run, right?” I feel like moms give these lessons quite often.

As I was walking around the city, I noticed that there was this colonial district with this big fort wall, this fortress that was surrounding it. It was maybe 20 feet tall with a slight grade to it maybe four feet thick. And up high, I remember seeing these cutouts where cannons used to go back in the day. In one of those cannon cubbies, I saw a family that was sitting, enjoying their lunch, enjoying the ocean view. I thought to myself, that is the best place I could be hanging out right now. I can sit and rest and enjoy the breeze. And if anybody tries any funny business, I'll just jump out the window.

Anyway, I found my way over to this cannon cubby. And I got to say, my time there was lovely. On one side, we had the colonial district, this old part of town with vendors and music and families, and on the other side of this cannon cubby was a steep drop, about 15 feet. It ended in a sidewalk and then a highway and then the ocean.

When I was in this cannon cubby, I was able to just stretch out and relax. I remember one vendor rolled by and offered some water. I politely declined and cracked open my huge bird book to identify these frigid birds that were soaring along the ocean.

I remember a second vendor came by and we had a nice lovely chat. I was able to stretch out and enjoy this beautiful cross breeze. This was really a wonderful place for me to relax and just what I needed after such a long flight.

Eventually, a third person stopped by the cannon cubby but, as opposed to passing by, he sat right in the cubby with me and was blocking my exit. I noticed that he was mumbling something low and fast and Spanish.

Curious about what he was saying, I leaned in, and he was saying something to the effect of, "Act quick. Act quick."

I looked him in the eyes, I followed his gaze down to his hand and he had a knife that he was pointing at me. In this moment, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, it's actually happening. I'm being robbed.”

As this was happening, you may imagine that I must have felt pretty scared, but I actually did not feel afraid at all. I felt so calm and so confident. And for the second time in a day, I experienced another gut instinct. My gut was telling me, yes, there may be some people in the world who actually want to stab another human being, but I don't think this guy is one of them. He couldn't have been more than 19 years old, just a kid, and my gut was telling me that his heart wasn't in it. He didn't want to be there. He didn't want to stab me. And he definitely did not know what I was going to do next.

So, I shook my had really coolly and told him, “No, I'm not giving you my things.” And he looked nervously between me and the knife as if to say, “I've got a weapon. I'm blocking your exit. You don't have any other choice.”

So I strapped my turtle backpack to myself and I wave goodbye to the stranger. I turned around and I jumped out the window. I remember using my fingers to really slow down my fall as I fell out this building. I fell about 15 feet and I hit the ground pretty hard. My ankles reverberated. But you know, I was just fine. I had made the judgment call ahead of time. If ever I needed to jump out this window, I'm going to be okay, and I was. I was able to brush myself off, get up, and make my way around the corner.

When I did, I saw that same stranger on the other side and I remember pointing him at him as if to say, “Don't try anything funny.”

And with both of his hands he waved me and brushed me to the side as if to say, “You are crazy and you are not worth the trouble.”

So in this moment, I was able to watch him ride away on his scooter that was parked by the highway and I made my way back to the hotel.

On the way back, there were these big storm clouds that rolled in. I remember it started to rain these huge raindrops. In this moment, I was flooded with every feeling that I did not feel in that cubby. I felt shocked and scared and alone. I remember crying in the middle of the streets, but nobody could tell I was crying because it was raining so hard by that moment.

I remember the streets flooded in an instant. By the time I got to my hotel, they were boarding up the front door to keep all the flood waters from coming in.

The same front desk attendant that I had seen before, he outstretched a hand to me and he was able to pull me over this barrier and bring me back into the hotel. He told me that he'd have that room ready for me as soon as he could.

I remember when I did get up to that hotel room, I just felt every human emotion that could be possibly felt. I felt somehow guilty for what had happened. I felt scared and alone. But amongst all these feelings, I also felt just so surprised, so surprised and in a good way that I had experienced such a strong gut instinct and that it kept me safe that day. I felt amazed.

The rest of the trip after that went without a hitch. I presented my research at an international conference. I was able to network with new collaborators. I ate so much ceviche in South America with my friends. We eventually saw the sword billed hummingbird. It was amazing.

After the conference, I continued a life in science. I finished my PhD, I did a few postdocs, and now I'm a professor at a university with a lab of my own. And over the years, I've come back to this story time and time again because, again, I'm someone who can struggle with self doubt. I question myself all the time when I need to make decisions, and it could feel, honestly, quite debilitating.

So when I think back on the story, I marvel. You know, who was that girl out there? So confident in her decisions, sliding down a building like Jason Bourne. And as I reflect on this story, there's been a strength that I've been pulling from it, especially as I grow as a scientist and I need to make lots of tough decisions. I've learned that instinct isn't just a whim. It can come from rich lived experiences and years of training. I also remind myself that the decisions I make aren't often impulsive. They're often the result of my tendencies to plan and think things through.

And when I honor my training, my planning, and what my heart is telling me, I'm never going to make any decision or any jump blindly. I know I could trust myself, and that when I land, I could brush myself off and I'm going to be okay.

Part 2

You can learn a lot growing up way out in the country, surrounded by woods and fields and nothing but dairy cows as neighbors. By the time I was 12, I learned how to drive, how to shoot straight, and how to gut out a deer. I learned how to tend a huge garden to help feed my family. I also learned how to entertain myself and how to be best friends with a farm dog. And when my best friend took a face full of porcupine quills, and I was the only one she trusted enough to let near her, I learned how to carefully snip off the end of each quill so that it would deflate, making it easier to pull out.

Let me tell you what, folks. In the zombie apocalypse, you want me on your team. I have skills.

I also learned the memory verse every Wednesday and Sunday at church, and once a quarter, I learned every obscure fact about some random book of the Bible so that I could absolutely crush it on the Bible quiz team.

But there were limits on what you could learn, and what it was okay to ask. All kids are naturally curious, and they ask things like, "Why is the sky blue?" Or maybe even, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" But I pushed it. Like, "Where exactly is hell? And who thought that that was a good idea?” Or, "Why was I born a girl when it was made very clear to me that everyone involved really would have preferred a boy?"

Kim Weaver shares her story at Kane Hall in Seattle, WA at a show in partnership with The Wild podcast and KUOW in April 2024. Photo by Elizar Mercado.

One time, I was very concerned that birds live in the air and fish live in the water, and they both really love to eat worms that live in the ground. And that seems very inefficient to me. But the only answers that I could get from the adults around me were, “It's all part of God's plan,” or, “Because God wants it that way.”

And even as a kid, I had a suspicion that what adults meant when they said that was, “I don't know and I don't care.” And sometimes, I think they also meant, “You're a really weird kid, you know.”

But then I found science or science found me. I was in an eighth grade science class and my teacher, Mr. Lines, shout out to all the teachers in the audience, we were learning about stars and I asked a question about sunspots and why they formed and also why they went away. His face lit up and he said, “Kim, that's a great question. I don't think anyone knows yet.” And my heart and my brain open like a supernova.

In science, the unknown was not unknowable, and questions, they weren't dangerous.

Now, don't get me wrong. I still went to church twice a week. I got promoted to captain of the Bible quiz team. But at school, I also competed in the science Olympiad and I was the captain of the mathletes. For those of you who might not know, those are mathematical athletes that do math competitions. Yeah, that's a real thing. And I loved all the science, even the stuff that the other kids found boring or really confusing or just plain embarrassing.

It's 10th grade and the unit in biology class is reproduction. Probably because she's horrified to say these things out loud to a group of 10th graders, our teacher is having us go around the room and read a paragraph one at a time. And while I'm rapt with attention of things that were certainly never discussed at home, I'm equally horrified as my classmates say things like “fallopian tubes” and “testes” out loud.

It's almost my turn, so I count ahead to see what amazing and horrifying science I'm going to have to read out loud, and I find my paragraph. It says, “If the male contributes a sperm that contains an X chromosome, the resulting child will be a girl. If the male contributes a sperm that has a Y chromosome, the resulting child will be a male.”

I was like, “Okay, I'm horrified because I'm going to have to say the word “sperm” out loud twice, but also Eureka. Now, I know why I'm a girl.” And I'll just let you all imagine how that particular conversation went down at the family dinner table that night.

Not a lot of people where I'm from go to college, but my teacher saw something in me and I was very determined. I earned a full scholarship and there I was on my way off to Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

And while my family and my community were proud of me, they were also really worried that I was going to go off to the ivory tower and get all sorts of new and dangerous ideas. And wow, were they right.

I wasn't even fully moved into my shared dorm room when I found out that my roommate, who was like a very statuesque, pale, suburban, Ohioan woman, I found out that she was a vegetarian. A vegetarian. Where I'm from, that's just code for bad hunter.

And my shock only deepened that first Sunday on campus because, of course, I had promised to go to church every Sunday. So I walked on down to the beautiful chapel on campus, and imagine my surprise when the chaplain is a woman. She's wearing a long, beautiful robe that's embroidered with rainbows and birds, and her sermon was about something called "social justice."

Now, I was used to sermons that were like big long lists of things that would send you to hell in a handbasket, but she didn't talk about any of them. She just talked about loving everyone. I mean, that was just the beginning. My first year at college was truly transformational.

When the year ended, I went back home and my plan was just keep my head down, work my summer job, and make it back to college in the fall. But people could tell that I was different. I didn't laugh at every joke. I didn't go to every single church function. And I didn't dismiss climate change and carbon dating as liberal hoaxes.

People were talking. Some of them straight to my face about how my lifestyle was going to send me to hell. And I'm like, "Now, I'm the one in the handbasket?"

It didn't help matters when later that summer, I was actually smote or smitten, smited. I'm not quite sure what the proper verb is there, like a bolt from the blue. All the science I knew then and all the science I know now can't really explain what happened.

It was a scorching summer day that looked like it was right out of a child's drawing labeled "summer." It's a blazing yellow sun in an unbelievably blue sky and no wind. It was hot. My family, we were all out in the yard doing chores. I was weeding the garden. My mom was hanging clothes on the line, my dad was mowing the lawn, and my best friend, the farm dog, was supervising all of us from a little shady patch under the lilac.

And then there was that subtle change in the air. You look up and you're like, "Wow, here comes one of those sudden summer storms."

So we scurry to put away the tools and the lawn mower and the laundry and we decide to sit on the porch, enjoying a cold beverage and cooling off while this storm starts to come in. At first, there's just a little bit of wind and a few fat raindrops and then, bam! The first bolt of lightning out of the sky avoids the house and all the trees, jumps over the clothesline and the truck, sneaks under the porch roof, ricochets off the metal lawn chair that my mom is sitting in, hits me straight in the chest.

It flung me 10 feet. I was face down, no pulse, no breathing. I'm dead.

You look a little worried. It's okay. I was revived. But if there were any doubts, they were resolved. I had been smited. And everybody was wondering would this be what it took to set me back on the righteous path.

When people hear that I've been struck by lightning, there's a very predictable set of questions that I get. I'm sure some of you are thinking them right now, so I'm going to run them down for you.

People who are afraid that something like this could happen to them and want to believe that I was doing something stupid say, “Were you doing something stupid? Like swimming in a lake while waving a metal flagpole or golfing with a metal golf club?” No, I was sitting on a porch under a roof, minding my beeswax.

The religious and wary atheists ask, "Did you see a tunnel or a bright light?"

I'm like, "Yes, you fools. I saw a bright light when the giant ball of lightning hit me in the chest, But no, no angels, no voices. I'm very sorry to disappoint you.”

People who have watched too many movies ask if I got superpowers from it. No, and now we're all disappointed.

The squeamish asked me if I have any cool scars. No comment.

But every now and again, I get another question, a good question, and really the only question that matters, which is, “Did it change you?” Yes, I have to say that it did, but not in the way that people back home had hoped. Because there I was doing nothing wrong. I had barely started living and learning and it was almost over in an instant. I decided if you can do everything right, if you can follow the rules and still be struck down, why not live a little? So, I resolved to have a very interesting life.

And that's what I did. I just went. I've earned two college degrees, I've lived on three continents, I served in the United States Peace Corps, I've changed careers a few times, and I served aboard an ocean‑going vessel that was so far out to sea for a month that, at times, the closest humans to us were the astronauts passing overhead in the International Space Station.

And once, Michelle Obama took both of my hands in both of her hands and looked deeply into my eyes and told me that she was proud of me.

But my interesting life, that's another story. Thank you very much.