ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Angel Colon was wheeled into a conference room at Orlando Regional Medical Center and faced more than a hundred cameras. For the first time, a shooting victim who survived the Orlando Massacre publicly shared their story.
“We were just having a great time, we’re all there having a drink,” Colon said.
Colon said he was just about to leave the club when the sound of music turned to gunfire.
“And then [the music] just keeps going. [The gunshots] happened and then we just grabbed each other and started running,” he said.
As he started running, the gunman shot him three times, striking him in the legs. He fell to the ground.
“By this time, I couldn’t walk at all,” Colon said. “All I could do is just lay down while everyone was just running on top of me, trying to get to where they had to be.”
Colon said he tried to play dead as he listened to the gunman in other rooms spraying bullets, striking anyone in his path. Then he heard the gunman come back his way.
“I hear him come back and he’s shooting everyone that’s already dead on the floor, making sure they’re dead.”
He said the gunshots kept getting closer and closer.
“I look over and he shoots the girl next to me, and I am there just laying down and I am thinking I’m next, I’m dead,” Colon said. “So I don’t know how but by the glory of God, he shoots towards my head but it hits my hand, and then he shoots me again and it hits the side of my hip.”
Much later, a police officer was able to reach Colon.
“I’m like, please carry me because I’m in pain right now. I couldn’t walk or anything,” he said. “I’m grateful for [the police officer] but the floor is just covered in glass, so he is dragging me out while I am just getting cut on my behind, my back, my leg.”
Police took Colon across the street where he said bodies were laying everywhere. Now, after making it out alive, he said he credits the hospital for keeping him alive.
“The way you guys have taken care of us at this hospital is amazing.”
A doctor says six people wounded in the Orlando nightclub shooting are “critically ill” at the hospital and another five patients are in “guarded” condition.
According to Dr. Michael Cheatham of Orlando Regional Medical Center, 16 others are in stable condition.
Meagan Noblet is a resident nurse at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Colon was the second patient she worked on Sunday night, a man she says she will never forget.
When Colon arrived, Noblet was the first person who came to his aid.
“I just remember going to work right away,” she said. “Just assessing all the injuries, and we had the doctors there who saw him right away.”
Just moments before, Noblet had been at home asleep. When she was notified about the incident, she answered the call.
“I got the call at 3:00 in the morning and they told me there was a mass shooting, so I came right in to work.”
Patient after patient continued to pour in.
“We would get one stable and then work them up, and then we would go to the next person, and then we would come back and make sure that [the first] person was okay,” she said, describing the night’s work.
The news conference was one of the first times Noblet had to reflect. She said she valued the chance to reconnect with a man she had met in such a difficult time.
“I’m glad that he’s doing great. He was very brave the whole time he was there.”
In all, Orlando Regional Medical Center received 44 patients over about a 3-hour time span. Nine patients died at the hospital.
Currently, 27 patients remain in the hospital, including six still in critical condition. One doctor said he would not be surprised to see the death toll rise even higher.
