By Matthew Phelan For Dailymail.Com

Updated: 09:33 EDT, 7 September 2023

A charity worker who survived a 950 million volt lightning strike opposite the White House that killed three others has spoken out about her horrific injuries – and grueling road to recovery.  

Amber Escudero-Kontostathis, 28, was in Washington DC for her birthday when six bolts of lightning hammered the spot she was standing on in the space of half a second, giving out an electrical output of roughly 950 million volts.

The freak weather event on August 4 fried her nerves, melted her watch to her wrist, and stopped her heart – and her recovery has also been marred with chronic pain and survivor’s guilt.  

The strike killed Brooks Lambertson, 29, a Vice President at City National Bank, and James and Donna Mueller, 76 and 75, who were visiting the capital for their 56th wedding anniversary. 

The group hid under a tree during a summer storm, which was subsequently hit by a bolt and flash of lightning that was caught on camera. 

Amber survived, but suffered appalling injuries which left her using a walker. She was forced to take three hour showers to soothe her wounds – but would still scream with pain throughout.  

Speaking about her recovery, Amber told the Washington Post: ‘Everyone’s been optimistic. But I just want to know if any of my nerves are, like, dead-dead. Like not coming back. Is there any way to test that?’ 

When she watched a clip of the first responders giving her CPR at the scene, she said: ‘They were putting so much force on me. They were practically jumping on my chest.’

Without watching the videos, she said she has no recollection of what happened. 

When they started resuscitating her, Amber recovered just long enough to squeeze one nurse’s hand and lock eyes with an agent – but her heart stopped again for 13 minutes.  

And talking about her painstaking recovery, she added: ‘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.

‘The one who gets to feel anything at all.

‘I didn’t survive because of a miracle. I survived because good people, complete strangers, ran toward danger in the middle of a storm to save me.’

Amber said that her injuries were so intense, and her pain was so great, that in the first few weeks after the event she would spend hours just simply screaming.

But after a while, she would follow each scream with a whisper: ‘But I’m grateful.’  

Nearly a year after the event, Amber revealed she still has no feeling from the lower part of her back to her upper thigh and she can’t sense where her 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.’ 

Five months into her recovery, she told her doctors that she was experiencing bewildering sensations thanks to the way that the intense lightening strike had affected her nervous system.

She told them she felt a ‘grinding pain, like sand grains’ that were trying to squeeze through the pores of her skin. 

Amber experienced consistent hot and cold feelings – with the sensations of burning and freezing striking at random times of the day. She felt piercing needles in her toenails, bruising bone aches, and a twisting in her right foot.

She said it felt as if a mechanical gear was spinning inside her ankle – the direct point where the initial split-second lightening strike entered her body. 

Her iPad, which had been sitting near her stomach during the strike, exploded – causing severe burns on that area of her body. 

In the early days, she would have to sit in the shower for three hours every day to scrub the wounds to avoid infection. 

And on her chest, the lightning left intricate red marks which have been likened to the roots of a tree, marking the intricate system of veins and arteries in her body. 

She said she was waiting for her husband to pick her up so they could celebrate her birthday as she canvassed near at Lafayette Square for non-profit Threshold Giving. 

Last year, the charity worker said she thought her shoes may have been the decisive factor in her survival as they were platform sandals with large rubber soles made by Doc Martens. 

Still, the flash of lightning traveled through the ground and shocked her body, resulting in her being rushed to hospital in critical condition as she struggled to breathe and suffered from severe burns. 

British paddleboarder Scott Seddon was filmed laughing and joking with a close friend as he emerged from the sea – just minutes before he was struck by lightning and killed.

The keen sportsman, 26, died shortly after emerging from the water during what appeared to be clear weather over the Greek island of Rhodes.

The video shows Scott looking athletic and clearly very happy – and gives no hint that he was in any apparent danger with an earlier storm seeming to have passed.

It was released to MailOnline by his devastated family who want it made public to show that Scott had left the sea when the incident happened and was not acting in any way recklessly.

Scott’s heartbroken mother said he had been having ‘the time of his life’ before his tragic death in the freak accident on Monday afternoon, when, she said, ‘God just decided to take him’.

Initial reports from Greece had suggested that Scott died while out to sea during an electrical storm at Agia Agathi as his close friend Anna Vidamour, 24, begged him to come in.

But Scott’s mother and father, who were in the ambulance as paramedics tried to save his life, said an earlier storm seemed to have passed and sunlight was breaking through the clouds.

They pointed out that the video shows there was no hint of an imminent lightning strike as he returned to the beach on Monday afternoon. 

His family insist experienced boarder Scott knew the dangers of the sea or weather in Greece where they used to live for years before coming home to Liverpool.

His father Stephen, 68, said: ‘We have lived in Greece for the last 30 years.

‘He knows the water and respects the water. He wasn’t some silly tourist who get on a board to go somewhere dangerous.

‘He was laughing coming out of the water. They put the canoes on the shore and they were standing on the stand and they hugged.

‘He was not in danger and was not dragged out of the water.’

Scott, who lived with his sister Layla and father Steve in a large bungalow in Liverpool, was described by close friends as a ‘lovely guy’ and ‘really popular’.

The avid sportsman, who had trained to be a civil engineer and worked in the building trade, spoke Greek and was a regular visitor to the family’s holiday home. 

‘He wasn’t a tourist and he knew and respected the water,’ his dad said.

‘The locals loved him and he went to school there.

‘We are devastated. We will never get over losing him.’

Anna, 24, from Belfast, who was close to Scott but not dating him – he was soon to go on another trip to visit his girlfriend – had taken the video just five minutes before he was struck.

Scott’s mother Jackie, 56, told MailOnline: ‘They got out of the water and they were so happy that they had come out of the water.

‘They were having a laugh and he asked his friend to take the video as there was no danger.

‘They put the board down and the lighting struck him on the back of the neck.

‘Scott did not have any metal on him – just two little earrings.

‘It looked like the storm had gone, the danger was finished.

‘It was just a freak accident.

‘He wasn’t on the board and it was not anywhere near him.

‘When Scott fell, he fell into the water. He was too heavy for Anna to lift so a Brazilian man came to help.’

She added: ‘My son went out having the time of his life, and God just decided to take him.

‘Lightning struck him in an instant. It was a terrible, sad thing that happened.

‘I texted him not to walk back and told him a storm was coming, so he was aware.’

Jackie and Stephen had come to pick him up to take him home but then saw an ambulance.

Fighting back tears, his mother said: ‘As we got closer to the ambulance, I saw my son’s foot.

‘I saw Anna and she said: “He’s been hit”.

‘I was thinking he had been hit by a car or boat. Stephen was on the floor in the ambulance crying: “It’s my son”.’

The family in the ambulance and Stephen helped give CPR to his son – whom the family nicknamed Elvis – before they got to hospital.

Speaking in the family’s large bungalow, Jackie said: ‘They worked on him for an hour.

‘They gave him adrenaline. I begged them: “Please give him one more”.

‘So they gave him one more. They tried and they weren’t going to give up.

‘But he had gone. I asked the doctor if they had found water in his lungs because I didn’t know he’d been struck by lightning.’

She added: ‘Scott was fearless. He was one of a kind, he was flamboyant. A beautiful blond boy.

‘He would catch octopus and give it to the locals.’

His sister Layla, 24, said: ‘By the time they came out of the water it was sunny.

‘When they were on their boards, they saw a bit of lightning but by the time they got in, it was in the distance, it had already passed.

‘There was no crazy water or lightning. The danger had gone.’

His sister added: ‘I am just numb over losing him.

‘It doesn’t feel real. Everyone adored him.’

The couple also released new pictures of Scott and his sister as children in tribute.

Scott was planning to go surfing with his girlfriend as well as running the bulls in Spain.

Raquel Leviss allegedly mailed Tom Sandoval a postcard with a lightning bolt to the home he shares with his ex Ariana Madix.

For fans, the lightning bolt is a significant symbol in the cheating scandal. During the affair, Raquel, 28, purchased a lightning bolt necklace which matched the electric necklace Tom, 40, also owned. 

Scheana Shay’s husband Brock Davies made the shocking claim while speaking with Vanderpump Rules alums Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright on their podcast When Reality Hits.

‘The postcard was Sedona with a lightning bolt in Sedona, and she sends a postcard, so it’s there for her her to read. That is calculated,’ Brock alleged. 

‘It was a postcard, it wasn’t a f**king closed envelope! It was because she wanted you guys to read it! Are you kidding me?’ Brock exclaimed.

‘She sent a postcard to Tom and Ariana’s house and she’s been like sending letters and stuff,’ Scheana added.

‘She sent a letter and Ariana sees the letter with “To Sandoval”, but she can’t open it, it’s illegal. But then the motherf**ker has the audacity to go, “I’ll go one step further of being an absolute tw*t” and writes a postcard!’ Davies alleged.

Ariana and Sandoval still live together at the home they purchased together in Valley Village despite their split, meaning Madix is able to see all their incoming mail. 

Brock also claimed the postcard was sent after Ariana revealed on Watch What Happens Live that Leviss had been sending Sandoval letters to their home but she was unable to legally open them herself. 

Ariana, whose nine-year long relationship with Sandoval imploded after his affair with Raquel came to light, revealed earlier this month that Leviss ‘was sending letters to my house like four days ago.’

She told host Andy Cohen that she didn’t open the letters but they were ‘addressed to him and in her handwriting.’

Cohen asked if Leviss had sent them from the mental health facility that she checked herself into last month, to which Madix replied: ‘I guess, I don’t know.’ 

She clarified that she’d only seen one letter from Leviss and that she handed it over to Sandoval.

‘I didn’t open his [bedroom] door. I just brought him the mail, saw it, put it on the table, walked away. It was just the one that I know of, but I have been out of town,’ Madix said.

Fans watched Raquel purchase the controversial $780 lightning bolt necklace on an episode of Vanderpump Rules.

According to a a Reddit user claiming to be a friend of the former pageant queen, who was previously crowned Miss Sonoma County in 2016 before appearing on Vanderpump Rules, the jewelry was used by the couple to say ‘I love you’ to each other.

She was photographed in the necklace several times on social media and at BravoCon in October 2022.

While Sandoval wears the accessory almost daily, Leviss only began wearing a similar necklace last year, months after they are said to have begun seeing each other. 

Raquel and Tom reportedly split up earlier this month but have still been speaking to one another. Over the weekend, a fan spotted Tom on a phone call with Raquel.

Raquel checked into a mental health facility after the cheating scandal broke, and while it was speculated their chat may have indicated she had finished treatment, a source shut that down.

Speaking with ET Online, the insider said Raquel is still in the facility and was actually on a scheduled phone call with Tom.

‘Tom was talking to Raquel during a scheduled phone call when he was spotted on the plane with her name on his phone. Raquel is still in the mental health facility and is very focused on doing the work required of her. Raquel only has certain times during the week she can make calls, and she and Tom had a scheduled call.’

Pictured: Brit who was killed by lightning strike while paddleboarding ‘while his girlfriend filmed him’ in Rhodes – as friends say his family are ‘heartbroken’

• Scott Aaron Seddon, 26, died yesterday afternoon on a beach in Rhodes, Greece
• Mr Seddon was paddleboarding in the sea when he was struck by lightning

By John Sturgis and Arthur Parashar and Alexander Butler and Anthee Carassava

Published: 07:42 EDT, 30 May 2023 | Updated: 08:02 EDT, 30 May 2023

Brit, 26, is killed by lightning ‘while his girlfriend filmed him swimming in the sea’ in Rhodes

• The British man tragically died this afternoon in the Agia Agathi area of Rhodes 

By Arthur Parashar and Eirian Jane Prosser

Published: 11:53 EDT, 29 May 2023 | Updated: 15:13 EDT, 29 May 2023

Toronto Maple Leafs win first playoff series in 19 YEARS as they beat Tampa Bay Lightning in 2-1 overtime thriller, fueling wild celebrations in the streets

• The Maple Leafs advanced in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in dramatic fashion
• The Maple Leafs will face the winner of Sunday’ Bruins-Panthers Game 7
• DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news

By Reuters

Published: 00:14 EDT, 30 April 2023 | Updated: 00:24 EDT, 30 April 2023