Survivors describe horror inside Pulse nightclub

ORLANDO, Fla. – Patience Carter lay on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood and fear.

She was suffering from two gunshot wounds to both her legs.

Then the gunman entered the bathroom, shooting.

"We were all scrambling in the bathroom, screaming at the top of our lungs," said Carter, 20, at a news conference at Florida Hospital Orlando. "People were getting hit by bullets. Blood was everywhere."

Then the shooting stopped.

For three hours, Carter and her friends Akyra Murray and Tiara Parker were held hostage by Omar Mateen, the man who killed 49 people, including Murray, inside Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning. He also wounded Carter and Parker along with more than 50 others.

Survivors from Florida Hospital Orlando and Orlando Regional Medical Center on Tuesday spoke to the media, recounting their horrifying, near-death stories.

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At ORMC, patient Angel Colon revealed that the attack happened as he and friends were wrapping up a great night at Pulse.

"We were saying our goodbyes. I'm hugging everyone. It was a great night … and out of nowhere, we just a heard a big shot. We stopped what we were doing and it just kept going.

We started running," Colon said.

He got shot three times in the leg. He fell to the ground as he was trying to flee the club and got trampled. The shooter killed the person who was lying next to him. He tried to kill Colon, too, but those bullets hit him in the hip and hand.

A police officer eventually dragged Colon out of the club, his body getting cut with shards of glass on the ground.

"At first I was hesitant to come out here, because it's all so fresh for me," Colon said on Tuesday, surrounded by his siblings. "But I wanted to get my story out so everyone would know what is going on now in this community."

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ORMC treated most of the patients as the region's Level 1 trauma center.

"You can never prepare for a disaster like this," said Dr. Michael Cheatham, chief surgical quality officer for ORMC.

"It's the largest we could have imagined, but we were never at want for anything because of everyone's support."

The injured started arriving at ORMC's trauma center shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday.

Many were quickly wheeled into operating rooms. Doctors at ORMC had performed more than 36 operations by Monday night and were planning to do eight more on Tuesday.
Twenty-seven victims of the Pulse shooting remain at ORMC.

Six are in critical condition, and the death toll could go higher in the coming days, said Cheatham.

Five other patients are in a guarded condition and 16, including Colon, are stable.

Another six are at Florida Hospital Orlando.

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At Florida Hospital Orlando, Carter described how Mateen, who was born in New York, pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State and said he was doing it because America was bombing his country in phone calls with police.

Then he addressed his hostages.

"'Are there any black people in here?'" he asked, according to Carter.

She was too afraid to answer. But another man spoke up and said there was.

"'I don't have a problem with black people,'" he replied, according to Carter. "'This is about my country. You guys have suffered enough.'"

At one point, his handgun jammed so he put down his AR-15 and began trying to fix it.

He also asked that the hostages not be on their phones.

"Every time a phone rung or every time a text message went off, he would say, 'Where is it? Give it up.'"

Carter just tossed her phone toward him.

After what felt like "hours and hours," she heard police yell to get away from the wall.

Then she heard three explosions.

Mateen then shot two other people before getting in a gun fight with police that left him dead.

Carter said she was able to crawl out of the stall.

"I was able to sit up and pull my leg up from the person who just was shot dead," she said.

She talked with Parker, who was shot in the side.

They then saw Murray, who was unconscious but still breathing.

She later died.

Carter said she felt guilty because she and Murray actually got out of the club, but went back in to get Parker.

"The guilt of being alive is heavy," said Carter.

A SWAT team member dragged her to an ambulance and she was taken to the hospital.

The three women were visiting from Philadelphia. They Googled what the best clubs were and Pulse popped up.

"We just went from having the time of our lives to having the worst time of our lives within minutes," she said

Another survivor, Angel Santiago, 32, of Orlando, also spoke.

He and a friend were near the rear bar when the shots rang out.

They scurried to another bathroom.

"There was just a lot of blood," he said. "A lot of people were hit and (there were) even some fatalities which were apparent. Everyone was just panicking."