Amy Robach has a deep aversion to the Fourth of July — one rooted in private trauma.
The previous “Good Morning America” host was discussing vacation traditions with T.J. Holmes, a fellow ex-host and her boyfriend, on an episode of their “Amy and T.J.” podcast when she admitted she had a “Debbie downer” story to inform.
A lightning strike throughout an Independence Day gathering at a park left her mother and father hospitalized and killed her uncle, she recounted.
“It changed the Fourth of July for us,” she mentioned on the podcast this week. “My mom and dad got seriously injured. They were in the hospital for weeks.”
“Their tennis shoes got blown off their feet,” she went on. “Their clothes had to be cut off of them. My dad had to have CPR performed on him, and my uncle Jack, actually, ultimately died. He was up against the tree that [got] hit. … He just crumbled.”
Robach, who was 14 years previous and residing in Georgia on the time, has naturally prevented the vacation ever since.
“Lightning kills, and the Fourth of July is one of those holidays where everybody’s out and about, and it tends to be a thunderstorm-heavy holiday,” Robach advised Holmes. “Things in my house changed after that. I kind of got into a habit of traveling around the Fourth of July.”
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The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention estimates 40 million lightning strikes yearly hit the bottom within the U.S. Whereas the percentages of getting struck are lower than one in 1,000,000 — and 90% of victims survive — 444 People between 2006 and 2021 died.
Robach, for her half, hasn’t taken half in Independence Day traditions for a very long time, although she and Robach may need plans this yr. She mentioned she’d by no means anticipated to speak in regards to the incident on the present.
“I haven’t even been in the country during the Fourth of July for many, many years,” she mentioned Wednesday.
