Sitting in the waiting room, her body was still going haywire. She was now five months and three weeks into her recovery, and she worried what the doctor would say. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post) She spent months recovering from physical and mental trauma after she was struck by lightning last August. To imagine living with this the rest of my life …,” her voice trailed off as she arrived that morning at the nerve expert’s office in the Maryland suburbs.Īmber Escudero-Kontostathis puts on makeup at her Washington home in March. For some patients, the pain becomes a chronic, permanent condition. After six months, it can be harder for some nerves to recover, he said. In the middle of the night, she would startle her husband, Achilles, yelping in her sleep and grabbing at her feet.Ī doctor specializing in nerves told her that six months would be an important milestone. She had worked through so much in the months since. For being anything other than grateful on days when she felt angry and exhausted. Guilt for not thinking of them as soon as she woke up every morning in her D.C. She was plagued with guilt for surviving when the others - a couple celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary and a young banker from California - did not. Her emotional recovery from the trauma was equally daunting. Surging up through her foot, it fried her nervous system, stopped her heart and burned gaping holes in her body. It made her watch so hot, it melted flesh on her wrist.

The lightning strike blew up her electronic tablet. Her doctors called it a miracle that she survived the millions of volts of electricity that coursed through her body. It had been 174 days since lightning struck a tree across from the White House, where Amber and three others were sheltering from the Aug. “Sometimes, the slightest thing will set them off,” she said, gingerly tapping her foot. The 28-year-old fundraiser eased into her fuzzy black-and-white slippers to get ready for a doctor’s appointment, and with each step, her feet felt like giant blisters threatening to pop under pressure. She woke up, like most mornings, in pain.Īs Amber Escudero-Kontostathis lay in bed, it felt like someone was taking a razor-thin scalpel and delicately slicing into her legs. Deep Reads features The Washington Post’s best immersive reporting and narrative writing.

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