The 20-year-old Illinois woman struck by a lava bomb while on a boat tour off the Puna coast says she thought she wasn’t going to survive the July 16 volcanic explosion.

“I thought I was encased in lava and everything just went black,” Jessica Tilton said, speaking to reporters from her bed at the Queen’s Medical Center today. “You didn’t see anything. You just felt like you were suffocating, and I thought I was dying.”

Tilton, a student at Bradley University in Illinois, suffered multiple broken bones, including to her femur, sacrum, pelvis and tibia.

She said she is grateful to two surgeons and an emergency medical technician who came to her aid, and that she hopes to make a full recovery.

Tilton and her 15-year-old twin sisters were in Hawaii as a part of an early 25th wedding anniversary celebration with their parents. Her mother, prone to seasickness, did not accompany the family on the boat.

The family was traveling on a Lava Ocean Tours boat that reportedly was much closer to the active ocean entry of lava from Kilauea volcano at Kapoho than other tour boats.

In initial reports, state Department of Land and Natural Resources officials said that the lava bomb that struck her went through the metal roof of the boat and was about a foot in diameter.

But Tilton’s father, Rob Tilton, said the lava bomb that struck his daughter was about two feet in diameter and came over the railing. “It kind of landed in her seat, hit her and pushed her aside.” The other lava bomb landed away from them.

Jessica Tilton said it was a large rock that was still glowing when it hit her on the left side of her torso, resulting in a large hematoma.

A crew member threw the lava bomb over the side of the boat, her father said.

DLNR reported 23 were injured, but Tilton was the only one who suffered severe injuries. The others were treated and released at the hospital for minor scrapes and burns.

It took more than an hour to get back to shore on rough seas — “the longest hour of my life,” Jessica Tilton said.

She was airlifted to Honolulu, where she underwent several surgeries and is working on rehabilitation that focuses on trying to sit up and get into a wheelchair. Other surgeries were expected, and it was not clear when she will be able to leave the hospital.

Tilton has to take a leave of absence from the fall semester of her junior year at Bradley University. As a contemporary and lyrical jazz dancer, she is hoping she can heal and return to a normal life.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.