One survived; one did not.
At least two of the victims of Sunday's mass shooting in Orlando, Florida gave vivid accounts of the massacre that claimed the lives of 50 people, including the gunman, Omar Mateen.
Eddie Justice and Angel Colon were both inside the Pulse nightclub and were about to leave at 2 a.m. when Mateen barged into the club and started shooting indiscriminately at the people inside, reports say.
Justice hid in the bathroom and began texting his mother, Mina.
Colon was bidding goodbyes to his friends when shots rang out. Three bullets immediately struck his leg, causing him to fall down.
Mina Justice was awoken by the message notification sound from her mobile phone. It was her son Eddie texting her.
As gathered by Christian News, Eddie's first message to her mother was: "Mommy I love you. In club they shooting." It was sent at 2:06 a.m. as recorded in Mina's phone.
Still only half awake, Mina tried calling her son, but there was no answer.
Alarmed, she texted: "U ok."
At 2:07 a.m., Eddie replied: "Trapp in bathroom."
Mina asked what club, and he responded: "Pulse. Downtown. Call police."
Then at 2:08, he texted: "I'm gonna die."
Mina frantically dialed 911 and then sent a series of messages to her son.
At 2:39 a.m., she received a series of short messages: "Call them mommy. Now. He's coming. I'm gonna die."
Mina tried to find out what was happening.
At 2:42 a.m., Eddie wrote: "Still here in bathroom. He has us. They need to come get us."
At 2:49 a.m., Mina told him the police were already there at the club.
"Hurry," he wrote. "He's in the bathroom with us ... He's a terror."
She asked to confirm: "Is the man in the bathroom wit u?"
He quickly responded: "Yes."
That was Eddie's final text message. Hours later, Mina found out that her 30-year-old son was among the 49 people killed in the shooting.
On the other hand, Colon thought it was his turn to die as he lay on the floor bleeding from his leg wounds. Worse, panicking club guests trampled on him, stepping on his badly wounded leg and shattering his leg bone, Agence France Press reports.
He could not move. Then he saw the gunman Mateen coming his way.
"All I could do was just lay down there while everyone was just running on top of me trying to get to where they had to be," Colon recalled in quivering voice during a press conference at the Orlando Regional Medical Center joined by his doctors on Tuesday.
"And all I could hear was the shots going one after another, and people screaming, people yelling for help," he told reporters.
"We were just having a great time. We were all just there having a drink. It was shortly after two o'clock. We were saying our good-byes. I'm hugging everyone. It was a great night," Colon said. "No drama, just smiles, just laughter."
The club was about to close when the shooting started.
"I was shot about three times in my leg, so I had fallen down. I tried to get back up, but everyone started running anywhere. I got trampled over, and I shattered and broke my bones on my left leg. So by this time I couldn't walk at all," Colon said.
He thought for a second that he had escaped death when the gunman went to another part of the club.
"He goes into the other room, and I can just hear more shots going on. I thought I was a little safe at this time because, you know, it's giving everyone time to tackle him down or get him down," he said.
"Unfortunately, I hear him come back, and he's shooting everyone that's already dead on the floor. Making sure they're dead," Colon continued.
"I can hear the (gunshots) closer, and I look over and he shoots the girl next to me. And I'm just there laying down. I'm thinking, 'I'm next. I'm dead.'"
Mateen did indeed shoot the wounded Colon—two more times. But this time, he had a bit of luck. "By the glory of God, he shoots towards my head but it hits my hand. Then he shoots me again and it hits the side of my hip," he said.
He was still breathing despite having five bullet wounds, but he continued to play dead.
"I had no reaction. I was just prepared to just stay there laying down so he won't know that I'm alive," he said.
"And he's just doing this for another five, 10 minutes. He's just shooting all over the place."
The police finally entered the building, exchanged fire with the gunman and rescued the survivors—three hours after the nightmare started.
Colon said a police officer finally dragged him to safety—through broken glass.
"The floor is just covered in glass. So he's dragging me out while I'm just getting cut—my behind, my back, my legs. I don't feel pain, but I just feel all this blood on me from myself, from my other people," he said.
Finally his nightmare was over.
