“I simply bear in mind studying an article and being like, ‘There isn’t a method,’ ” she mentioned in an interview Tuesday with The Washington Submit. “However then I checked out photographs of the older couple.”

Officers say Escudero-Kontostathis had ended up huddled with the couple — Donna Mueller, 75, and James Mueller, 76 — and 29-year-old Brooks A. Lambertson, a financial institution official on the town from Los Angeles, as a storm rolled in on Aug. 4. However Escudero-Kontostathis mentioned her final reminiscence was speaking with the Muellers, who have been in D.C. to have fun their 56th wedding ceremony anniversary, earlier that day.

Strangers huddled collectively below a tree. Then lightning struck.

Escudero-Kontostathis approached them as a part of her work with the Worldwide Rescue Committee, canvassing the realm for donations to assist refugees in Ukraine. They bonded over the Muellers’ dwelling state of Wisconsin, the place Escudero-Kontostathis had lately traveled for a household reunion, and the fun of visiting the Inexperienced Bay Packers stadium, Escudero-Kontostathis recalled.

She really useful that they take a look at the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition and Planet Phrase whereas in D.C.

The subsequent factor she knew, Escudero-Kontostathis mentioned, she was mendacity in a hospital mattress, with IVs puncturing her physique. An image of the Muellers was now flashing on her iPad. They have been killed, the article mentioned. In some way, she was nonetheless alive.

Within the days since lightning struck at Lafayette Sq., Escudero-Kontostathis has discovered to reside with second-degree burns down her left aspect that really feel like “10,000 grains of sand try to get by way of every pore on the similar time.” However the guilt of surviving the lightning strike that killed the Muellers and Lambertson haunts her.

Escudero-Kontostathis mentioned she can not bear in mind the minutes earlier than the strike, however she worries that she motioned for the Muellers to affix her below a tree to hunt shelter from the rain.

“My greatest concern is that I referred to as again out to them,” she mentioned. “I couldn’t reside with myself if that’s the case. It’s my greatest concern, that it’s as a result of I needed to say ‘Hello’ yet one more time earlier than they left.”

She feels comparable pangs about Lambertson, a vice chairman at Metropolis Nationwide Financial institution. Escudero-Kontostathis mentioned she doesn’t recall interacting with him that day, however she has since discovered that they share mutual pals from California.

“I’ve this guilt of, ‘Why did I make it?’ ” she mentioned. “I attempt to calm myself with gratitude of, ‘Nicely, I did, so I’m not going to waste it.’ ”

The 4 victims of the lightning strike have been introduced collectively by happenstance — three out-of-towners and Escudero-Kontostathis, standing collectively not removed from the president’s dwelling.

It was Escudero-Kontostathis’s twenty eighth birthday, and it was nearing time for her birthday dinner on the Hamilton when the storm rolled in.

Earlier than 6 p.m. that day, she declined a name from her sister-in-law and nieces, who needed to want her a cheerful birthday.

“At work Rn @thewhitehouse ! Dinnertonight tho!” she wrote from her Apple Watch.

She then acquired out her telephone and took two photos of the sky, with darkish clouds approaching.

“Went from feeling like 105° all day (actually primarily based on my climate app) and now right here comes thunder,” she texted her sister-in-law, including a laugh-crying emoji.

About an hour later, she and the three others ended up sheltering from the pouring rain below a tall, leafy tree about 100 ft from the statue of Andrew Jackson, officers have mentioned. Specialists recorded a lightning flash within the space as six particular person surges of electrical energy hit the identical level on the bottom inside half a second.

“It shook the entire space,” an eyewitness informed The Submit. “Actually like a bomb went off, that’s the way it sounded.”

All 4 have been taken to a hospital. Authorities quickly revealed the Muellers had been killed. So, too, had Lambertson, whose dad described him as “most likely the perfect human being I do know.”

Escudero-Kontostathis’s coronary heart additionally stopped, along with her husband 12 minutes away from choosing her up for dinner. However two nurses visiting the White Home on trip rushed to assist. They carried out CPR on all 4 victims, alongside legislation enforcement.

It’s unclear why solely Escudero-Kontostathis survived.

Quite a few storms with frequent lightning flared within the area that Thursday night, with temperatures within the mid-to-upper 90s earlier within the day.

Specialists warn that standing below a tree in such situations could be harmful. When a tree is hit by {an electrical} cost, moisture and sap simply conduct the electrical energy and carry it to the encircling floor, in keeping with a Nationwide Climate Service webpage on lightning science.

If the electrical energy struck the tree first, specialists mentioned, tons of of hundreds of thousands of volts would have handed by way of the tree earlier than touring into and over the our bodies of these beneath it.

What occurs when lightning strikes — and the right way to keep secure

Escudero-Kontostathis, whose time educating English within the Center East impressed her to assist these suffering from struggle and poverty, thinks her footwear may need helped save her. That day, she was sporting sandals with thick rubber soles, which she mentioned she believes may have absorbed a few of the electrical energy.

She wore those self same platform footwear again to Lafayette Sq. on Monday, when “Good Morning America” filmed her reuniting with the nurses whom she credit with saving her life.

Underneath blue skies, Escudero-Kontostathis stood on the grassy park outdoors of the White Home, utilizing a walker. Jessee Bonty and Nolan Haggard, the emergency nurses from Texas who carried out CPR on these injured within the blast, walked towards her.

“Hello, I’m Jessee, can I provide you with a hug?” mentioned Bonty, who two weeks in the past had felt Escudero-Kontostathis’s hand grip hers earlier than dropping its pulse on two separate events.

“Hello, I’m Amber. Sure, please,” Escudero-Kontostathis replied, earlier than wrapping her bandaged arms across the girl who saved her.

That evening, Escudero-Kontostathis and her husband went to the Hamilton for the birthday dinner she by no means had. They introduced Bonty and Haggard with them.

“We’re actually besties now,” she mentioned. “They are going to be in my life perpetually.”

William Wan contributed to this report.