Victim, Doctors Describe ‘War Zone’ Following Shootings In Orlando

“I really appreciate all the love I’ve gotten”, he said during a Tuesday news conference at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Colon, who also spoke at a Tuesday news conference at Orlando Health, a hospital where first responders brought victims of the shooting, said that he was preparing to leave the club at the time that Omar Mateen, identified by authorities as the perpetrator of the attack, opened fire on club-goers. Colon said he was shot about three times in the leg, fell and was trampled over in the stampede of people running for safety before eventually being dragged out of the club by a police officer.

“The last thing that I heard before the police said, you know, “Move away from the walls, ‘ because obviously they were about to bust through again, he said, ‘Hey, you” to someone on the floor inside the bathroom and shot them, shot another person”, said Carter.

“I would walk around the emergency department and try to determine by their vital signs and their wound pattern where they needed to go”, said Smith, who called it the worst and best day of his career.

Mateen went into another room and Colon heard more shooting.

The shooter was making sure there were no survivors, Colon said. “I was able to see him shooting at everyone”.

“Some people are just so heartless”, he said before going on to describe what happened inside the nightclub.

“I don’t even know how I’m alive today”, Santiago said.

Colon lived in Framingham for several years, according to The Boston Globe.

“The amount of destruction wasn’t something that we were as used to seeing”, said Dr. Joseph Ibrahim, the trauma medical director.

At one point, the team ran out of operating supplies amid the high volume of patients. “Our incredible nurses and techs were putting them on stretchers and rolling them into us, telling us another patient’s here, another patient’s here, another patient’s here”, Dr. Kathryn Bondani said. “I see the barrel, I see the gun, and you’re seeing the flicker of the bullets coming out”.

That’s when Colon said that an officer, whose name is not known, saved his life.

“I’m grateful for him, but the floor is covered in glass”, Colon recounted. “I don’t feel pain, but I just feel all this blood on me from myself, from my other people”, Colon says. “And he just drops me off across the street and I look over and there’s just bodies everywhere”.

Patients who escaped the nightclub were admitted first.

Julia Warren, another nurse, said “there were a lot of hugs” at the hospital.

Colon said it was around 2 a.m. and the night was wrapping up when a loud gunshot rang out.

“He grabs my hand and says this is the only way that I can take you out”.

Instead they were faced with dozens of victims, and not enough ambulances to get them there.