Orlando shooting doctors recall endless flow of victims; survivor recalls terror

ORLANDO, Fla. — With all 49 of the dead now identified, 27 survivors of the massacre at a gay nightclub here remained hospitalized Tuesday, including six in critical condition, as one of the wounded and a team of doctors gave gripping accounts of the calamity that struck early Sunday.

Angel Colon told of being shot multiple times by a gunman who went methodically from one fallen victim to another, shooting them again to make sure they were dead, of being trampled by people fleeing, and then of being dragged to safety across broken glass by a police officer.

Appearing at a news conference with Colon, emergency room doctors and trauma surgeons at the Orlando Regional Medical Center described a scene far beyond anything they had handled before, or imagined handling. They spoke of bleeding patients arriving far faster than they could be treated, lined up on gurneys in hallways.

"It was singularly the worst day of my career and the best day of my career, and it was probably the same for every person standing here," Dr. Chadwick P. Smith said.

[Survivors describe horror inside Pulse nightclub]

In Washington, President Barack Obama on Tuesday reiterated that investigators had found no evidence that the gunman, Omar Mateen, had actual contact with a larger terrorist group like the Islamic State. Mateen declared allegiance to that group during the nightclub assault.

"It is increasingly clear, however, that the killer took in extremist information and propaganda over the internet," Obama said. "He appears to have been angry, disturbed, unstable young man who became radicalized."

"These lone actors or small cells of terrorists are very hard to detect and very hard to prevent," he said. "We are doing everything in our power to stop these kinds of attacks."

[Gunman had been seen on gay dating apps and at Orlando nightclub before shooting]

Referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, the president said: "I want to remind them that they are not alone. The American people and our allies, friends all over the world, stand with you and are thinking about you and are praying for you."

The FBI was continuing to look into Mateen, 29, who died in a shootout with police, for evidence of motive, possible accomplices, or links to terrorist groups. Mateen had voiced hatred of gays, minorities and Jews, and had claimed links to Islamist terrorist groups. But investigators were also looking into reports that he might have been gay himself.

At the hospital news conference, Colon recounted an enjoyable night coming to an end at Pulse, a nightclub popular with Orlando's gay Latinos, when shortly after 2 a.m., as he and his friends were exchanging goodbye hugs, a barrage of gunshots rang out. Like the rest of the panicked crowd of more than 300 in the club, he ran for the door, but three bullets hit his leg and he fell.

"I tried to get back up but everyone started running everywhere, I got trampled over, and I shattered and broke my bones in my left leg," he said. "All I could do was just lay down while everyone was just running on top of me, trying to get to where they had to be."

He heard more gunshots and screaming, as the gunman apparently went to a back room, and then returned.

"He's shooting everyone that's already dead on the floor, making sure they're dead," Colon said. "I look over, and he shoots the girl next to me. And I'm just there laying down, and I'm thinking 'I'm next, I'm dead.' So I don't know how, but by the glory of God, he shoots toward my head but it hits my hand, and then he shoots me again and it hits the side of my hip. I had no reaction. I was just prepared to just stay there laying down so he won't know that I'm alive."

Then the killer traded gunfire with arriving police officers, retreating to another room. An officer entered, found Colon still alive, and dragged him through broken glass, cutting his back and legs, to the street and then to a nearby Wendy's, where, he recalled, "there's just bodies everywhere."

"I wish I could remember his face or his name," Colon said of the officer. "I'm grateful for him."

[Clinton rips Trump over response to Orlando massacre]

Doctors at the medical center said they ordinarily would get some warning that wounded were coming, as well as information about the number of patients and their conditions. But not in this case, with a chaotic mass shooting scene just blocks from the hospital. Patients arrived in trucks and cars, and on foot, as well as in ambulances.

"We quickly got about five patients, and that was a lot for us, and we thought maybe that was going to be it," said Dr. Kathryn Bondani. "And then they started lining up in the hallway."

The medical center and other hospitals were grappling with the worst mass shooting in U.S. history — 49 dead, in addition to the gunman, and 53 wounded. Forty-four patients were taken to the medical center, the region's only trauma center, and nine of them died quickly. No other patients have died since that night.

One of the six patients was still in critical condition.

"I would consider them to be profoundly ill," said Dr. Michael Cheatham. "I suspect that they will survive, but my concern is that they will have lasting harm from this, in terms of their functionality."

Doctors said they saw small-caliber and larger-caliber gunshot wounds, indicating that the gunman used both of the weapons he had with him, an AR-15 type of assault weapon, which fires small, high-velocity rounds, and a semiautomatic handgun.

On Tuesday, the entire block surrounding the Pulse nightclub remained blocked off with a black-screened fence, with a wider area cordoned off with yellow police tape. Businesses — fast food restaurants, gas stations and retail stores — were closed, and a heavy contingent of media stood nearby.

The night before, thousands of people gathered on a grassy knoll in downtown Orlando for a candlelight vigil that was by turns defiant and melancholy.

"We have come together as a force here in Orlando that cannot be broken," said Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LBT Community Center of Central Florida.

Mourners sang the sports fight song, "I believe that we will win."

But moments later, during about 10 minutes of silence, tears flowed and embraces tightened, as the crowd lifted candles into the air and a church bell tolled.

"Numb," Elayane Merriwether, a 25-year-old bartender who lost a co-worker in the shooting, said of the city's mood. "People just keep crying. People don't know what to say to each other. I think a lot of people are still in shock."

Thousands of others gathered in cities around the country, including New York and Los Angeles, to remember the victims. Outside the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan, where the modern gay rights movement was started, speakers bemoaned not only the assault at the gay nightclub, but also the lack of action in Congress to pass comprehensive gun control legislation.

The authorities and Orlando's tight-knit gay community were still trying to come to terms with what had motivated Mateen, as news reports surfaced that he may have visited the nightclub several times before the shooting. Several people who said they frequented the club told The New York Times in interviews that they had never seen Mateen before.

[Held hostage in Orlando: Playing dead in an effort to live]

The FBI was also looking into reports that Mateen had used a gay dating app, a senior federal law enforcement official said.

His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said that Mateen might have been gay and chosen to hide it. Yusufiy said Mateen had told her that he had frequented nightclubs before their marriage, but had not described them as gay clubs.

His father, Seddique Mateen, has said his son was enraged by gay people. Asked on Tuesday if he had seen any indication that Omar Mateen himself was gay, the father said, "None whatsoever."

Investigators must now try to determine how much the killings were the act of a deeply disturbed man, as his former wife and others described him, and how much he was driven by religious or political ideology.

Obama has called the attack "an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been concerned about."

James B. Comey, FBI director, said Mateen had clearly been "radicalized," at least in part via the internet. "So far, we see no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States, and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network," Comey said.

Overnight, the last of the victims' names were posted, ending a heart-wrenching process that had played out during the day as families learned the fate of their loved ones.

While the shooting exacted a heavy toll on the gay and Latino populations — the events occurred on Latin night at Pulse, and most of the victims were Latino — the impact here was felt far beyond those spheres.

"This is just, it's just my home and it should be a place where everyone feels safe," Rachel Luce-Hitt, 34, said at the vigil as she clutched a bundle of purple and yellow flowers. She fought off tears, and her voice trailed off as a woman approached offering her a "free hug."

While she said she did not cry Sunday after the initial news of the shooting, Luce-Hitt said, she began weeping Monday morning as she drove to her job in the diversity and inclusion office at the University of Central Florida. Her emotions, she said, were set off when the names of the victims began surfacing.

"When you hear names and you start, like, these are real people with real families that are really hurting," she said. "It's a shock at first, but I was like, 'What have we lost?'"