The Denver Post reports the couple were at 12,400 feet, just above the treeline and about 2,000 feet below the summit, per CBS Denver, when they were hit by lightning.
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Kathleen Bartlett and Ryan Pocius were married less than one week when they hiked Mt. Yale in Denver, Colorado, on July 17.
The family plans to set up a memorial for Bartlett in the Denver Botanical Gardens (where the couple was married) with the donations they receive.
He says Bartlett was “happy” the day she died, and that she was “surrounded by a bed of wildflowers as far as her eyes could see as she passed from this world to the next”. “My heart goes to [Pocius] incredibly”.
‘The pain he must be feeling, I can’t even imagine.’.
Several years ago, Bartlett and Young traveled to Nicaragua to help educated children living and working in landfills. She shared a photo of Bartlett tending to a girl who had been injured. “And Katie got our first aid bag and bent down and started to treat her burns”.
Other friends describe Bartlett as a attractive person who had a passion for teaching. “We hope to honor her through the continued advocacy of young children”. “She was just a very generous, caring and giving person”.
Inside STARS Early Learning Center Miss Katie’s (Bartlett’s) classroom is neatly packed away – faculty provides she used to show Three- to 5-year-olds on the Early Learning… “She was a soft, gentle breeze in any space she graced. Our family is saddened by her passing, yet certain that Katie-Bug is in a loving, blissful and ideal space”, said Grace Jaquez-Chase.
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“Wherever they were with the special gifts that they brought to our program, and to her classroom, she is able to bring that child to a new level of learning”, Bartlett said.
