White House lightning strike survivor details painful recovery after 950M volts stopped her heart
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The lone survivor of the lightning strike that killed three people near the White House last summer opened up about her long road to 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.
Escudero-Kontostathis was the only one to survive. It was her 28th birthday.
Still, the fundraiser, who was working near the park that day, did not make it out unscathed, according to the newspaper.
The lightning fried her nerves and burned massive holes in her body.
It melted her skin where her watch was and where her electronic tablet was pressed against her body.
Her heart stopped twice and she had to relearn how to walk, the Washington Post reported.
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.”
Secret Service agents were the first to the scene of the horrific lightning strike.
A doctor from the White House and two ER nurses who were visiting DC on vacation also jumped in to administer CPR, according to the publication.
The 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.
But shortly after, her heart stopped again.
They did not stop chest compressions or give up and 13 minutes after her heart stopped, she 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 used 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,” she 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.
That doubt used to send her into a spiral of despair, but it no longer controls her, she said.
“It’s not going to stop me from what I’m supposed to do,” she told the Washington Post.
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, laughing with relief. “Like I’m normal, just any other student.”
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