By Phil Riske | Managing Editor
In the closing hours of the 2015 Arizona Legislature, I was watching the Democrat caucus discussing bills that might be voted on before the session adjourned. I noticed a young lawmaker I hadn’t seen before, and her face was severely scarred by burns and her right arm was gone.
A burn victim myself, I had to look into her story.
She is Stefanie Mach, 34, who represents east-central Tucson.
Mach and a companion were returning on a dark night from an Elcho High School post-graduation party in Madison, Wisc. when their vehicle went off the road.
When the pair got out of the automobile, they stepped on an electrical line that had fallen when their car grazed a utility pole.
It was reported Mach and her date were holding hands when they stepped on the electrical line.
He was killed instantly.
When Mach was released from the hospital, she had lost an arm, was legally blind in both eyes due to cataracts caused by the accident, and carried significant scars. She lost her sight totally in one eye several years later, AP reported.
Bravely pushing on, Mach earned a college degree from the University of Wisconsin with a double major and eventually earning her master of public policy degree from Brown University in Rhode Island.
“Failure was never an obstacle,” she told AP. “People expected me to fail.
Mach worked in the non-profit sector around the world, including Arizona. She told AP she saw a dysfunctional, one-party system in the state and decided to run for the Legislature and was elected in 2013 on a platform of improving healthcare and education.
