Amber Escudero-Kontostathis White House lightning survivor reveals her long road to recovery, ten months after strike that sent 950 million volts through her body, along with three others standing under a tree, only for the 28 year old woman to be the sole survivor.
Survivor’s guilt. The lone survivor of the lightning strike that killed three people near the White House last summer has revealed the long road to her ‘painful recovery’ after the August bolt stopped her heart for 13 minutes.
Amber Escudero-Kontostathis, 28, ran for cover with three others under a tree in Lafayette Square park when rain began pouring down on Aug. 4.
In half a second, a lightning bolt struck that tree sending roughly 950 million volts of electricity down its trunk, through the ground and back up into the bodies of the four bystanders, the Washington Post reported.
Skin melting and burning holes in her body
Escudero-Kontostathis was the only one to survive. It was her 28th birthday.
Nevertheless, the fundraiser, who was working near the park that day, did not make it out unscathed. The incident led to her suffering deep physical and psychological pains.
According to the report, the strike led to her nerves literally being fried along with the hapless woman incurring massive burned holes in her body.
So prevalent was the lightning strike, Escudero-Kontostathis had her skin melted where her watch was along with where her electronic tablet was pressed against her body.
Her heart stopped twice, with the 28 year old having to relearn how to walk, the Washington Post reported. Ironically, what may have saved the woman was the ‘huge platform rubber soles’ of her Doc Marten shoes she was wearing on the day of the lightning strike.
The will to survive ordeal
Months after the strike, Escudero-Kontostathis suffers from pain and discomfort daily and emotionally, she battles with survivor guilt and anxiety, she told the outlet.
Brooks Lambertson, 29-year-old banker from California who met Escudero-Kontostathis in DC for business was killed by the bolt, as was a Wisconsin couple — Donna Mueller, 75, and James Mueller, 76 — celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary with a trip to the nation’s capital.
Escudero-Kontostathis said she spoke to people who knew each of the victims so that she could ‘carry them with [her.]’
Their memories are what she holds onto when she has days that leave her screaming out and sobbing in pain.
‘Whatever I’m experiencing that day, however much pain I’m in, I try to hold on to the fact that I’m the lucky one,’ she told the Washington Post. ‘The one who gets to feel anything at all.’
On the day of the strike, an impromptu medical crew were able to resuscitate Escudero-Kontostathis long enough for her to squeeze the hand of one of the nurses and make eye contact with an agent.
‘I survived because good people, complete strangers’
But shortly after, her heart stopped again.
They did not stop chest compressions or give up and 13 minutes after her heart stopped, the woman miraculously came back to.
The nurses later told her that they refused to give up because of her determined squeeze, the newspaper reported.
‘I didn’t survive because of a miracle,’ Escudero-Kontostathis said. ‘I survived because good people, complete strangers, ran toward danger in the middle of a storm to save me.’
In the aftermath, the 28-year-old had to relearn to walk and was forced to use a walker for some months.
She had to take three hour showers to thoroughly clean her deepest wounds to prevent infection while they healed.
She has large scars marking the wounds on her stomach and thigh, where her tablet scorched her body, according to the outlet.
She takes a long list of medications and still experiences weird and irritating sensations due to the nerve damage and suffered a panic attack on a trip to New York when the sound of thunder tore through the sky.
‘I still have no feeling from the lower part of my back to my upper thigh, so I can’t sense where my legs are going,’ the survivor said. ‘It’s like I’m floating on a box on my tailbone. I feel pressure pushing up on the box, but nothing else.’
Escudero-Kontostathis has been making progress during physical therapy sessions but it’s unclear if she will ever live a pain-free life.
Just three weeks after she was released from the hospital, Escudero-Kontostathis began her dream graduate program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
In January, she started her second semester — without a walker — and didn’t have to answer other students’ questions about her condition or the now notorious lightning strike.
‘It went so well,’ she told the Washington Post after her first class. ‘Like I’m normal, just any other student.’
Well almost normal. Save for the long journey of physical recovery and self redemption of survivor’s guilt that will likely haunt the 28 year old for the rest of her life.
