CARACAS – As the tranquil night in Venezuela’s capital was shattered by sudden explosions, 21-year-old Mariana Camargo found herself racing through the streets of eastern Caracas.

At precisely 2:05 a.m., with the echoes of the blasts still resonating, Associated Press photographer Matías Delacroix was already capturing pivotal moments of the unfolding U.S. military action in Venezuela.

In the ensuing days, following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the Trump administration and his subsequent replacement by the vice president, Camargo and Delacroix revisited the scene where the now-iconic photograph was taken.

Recalling the chaos, Camargo shared, “A woman in a large truck halted abruptly and yelled, ‘Kids, what are you doing here? Go home—they’re bombing!’ There were around nine of us, and we immediately decided to flee, sprinting past this spot.”

The photographs depict Camargo in a white shirt and jeans, her face marked by urgency and fear, leading a group of friends as they hurried through the street. She noticed Delacroix positioned nearby, capturing the intense moment.

It was that emotion that caught the eye of Delacroix, who minutes earlier awoke to the rumbling sound of American strikes, grabbed his camera and ran onto the street toward the explosions. It was there, with the sound of military aircrafts overhead, that the two crossed paths: one person running away from the blasts and one running toward them.

“What caught my attention was how you were running, with your cellphone and clearly scared. I have photos of your friend that was behind you, but between the two photos, yours was the one that expressed the most what was happening,” said Delacroix to Camargo as they flipped through the photos.

As the photograph proceeded to paint the front pages and websites of the world’s biggest media, capturing a moment set to transform the hemisphere, Camargo’s friends began to see her and write her in their WhatsApp group message.

“Am I tripping or is that Nana Mariana???” asked one of her friends, posting a picture of the photo. (In Venezuela, Nana is a nickname for Mariana.)

“IT IS NANA!” another friend wrote shortly after.

The photo slowly became a joke in her friend group and even turned into a meme with the words “the gringos have arrived!” written over it. Camargo laughed as she scrolled through the messages.

“Now I laughed, and I laughed when I saw the photo. My mom laughed, my friends too. They made stickers and memes and all that,” Camargo said. “But I still see the videos of what happened that day, of the explosions, I hear the sounds and I still feel this sense of panic.”

On Sunday, a day after the strikes and as chaos, Camargo wrote to Delacroix over his Instagram account, asking if he had more photographs of the moment.

When they met up on Tuesday, chatting on the street, the two parted with a hug.

“Crazy things always happen to me,” she said with a laugh. “Of course I end up on the street during a bombing and I go viral. It’s nuts.”

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Associated Press reporter Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.