Kim Mullens is an exuberant spirit — you can hear it in her voice, punctuated with laughter and memorable phrases: "There are good days and bad days — sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug." In 1995 when she was 38, a tear in her carotid artery left her "with one paw," that kept her from working because she couldn’t climb into the cab of the CAT 966 earth-moving equipment she operated.