After a near fatal accident, this Montana chef returns to cooking with a myoelectric hand

It was a motionless baby bear that caught Eduardo Garcia’s attention during a hike in the Montana backcountry in 2011. Curious, Garcia nudged the animal with his knife and realized too late that the bear was covering a live power line that carried 2,400 volts.

“There is no way to describe the warm symphony of noise that fills your body when being electrocuted,” he says. “The next thing I remember was looking down at my left hand and seeing a charred mess.”

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The classically trained chef – luckily a right-handed one – then spent 48 days recovering in a burn trauma unit, wondering what was next for his career.