Orlando shooting victim: ‘I am thinking, I am next. I am dead’

Angel Colon was in Pulse nightclub saying farewell to friends when the shots began.

First he heard them. Then he felt them.

Three quick shots to his leg and the instinct to run propelled him forward, then face-down on the floor. What he didn’t know at the time: The gunman, Omar Mateen, was not finished.

“We grabbed each other and started running. Unfortunately, I was shot three times in my leg and I had fallen,” Colon said. “I got trampled over. I shattered and broke bones in my left leg.”

Colon shared his story Tuesday morning at Orlando Regional Medical Center, the hospital blocks from the nightclub where the nation’s deadliest mass shooting unfolded Sunday morning. Doctors described the chaos in vivid terms.

Colon, 26, was flanked by his five siblings and the trauma medical team that handled the wounded.

Dozens of victims were wheeled in the trauma center in two waves, suffering small- and large-caliber wounds, tissue shredded, cavities shattered, the scale nothing like the medical staff had ever seen.

All told, 44 victims were treated at the Level One Trauma Center, among the busiest in the state of Florida. Of that number, nine died; 27 remain in the hospital. Six remain in intensive care.

Like a “war scene” is how Dr. Joseph Ibrahim described it.

Blocks away, inside the club, as Colon lay wounded, Mateen, returned, shooting the woman beside Colon. He was next.

“I hear him coming back. He is shooting everyone that’s already dead on the floor, making sure they are dead,” Colon said tearfully. “I am thinking, I am next. I am dead.”

Colon said Mateen took aim. He shot towards Colon’s head, hitting him in the hand. Then another shot to his side.

“I had no reaction. I was preparing to stay there, laying so he would not know that I am alive.”Moments later, a police office grabbed Colon’s hand. He apologized and said, “This is the only way I can get you out of here.”

Colon said the police officer dragged him across the street to the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, where he joined other shooting victims.

“I looked over and there’s just bodies everywhere. We are all in pain.”

This story was originally published June 14, 2016 at 3:19 PM with the headline "Orlando shooting victim: ‘I am thinking, I am next. I am dead’."