Watch Video | Listen to the AudioBy Ivette Feliciano,Sam Weber, and Michael D. ReganIVETTE FELICIANO: On vacation in Orlando last June 12th, or 20-year-stale Patience Carter,on the left, her friend Tiara Parker, or Parker’s cousin,Akyra Murray, decided to depart out to the Pulse night club.
PATIENCE CARTER: It was so much fun, or we were talking to each other throughout that night,like we are definitely coming back here, this is a spot for vacation. We were so set on coming back again, and then the gunshots started.
IVETTE FELICIANO: Shortly after 2 AM,Omar Mateen entered the club armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun and began firing. PATIENCE CARTER: We didn’t know if it was gunshots, we didn’t know if it was fragment of the music. All we were doing was feeling the reactions of other people. And everybody was chaotic. And at this point, or people are just kind of just running back and forth,not really knowing what to conclude. I dropped to the floor because I don’t know what to conclude.
IVETTE FELICIANO: Carter, Parker, and Murray ended up hiding together in the club’s bathroom. Within minutes,Mateen would follow. PATIENCE CARTER: We were the last few to get into the bathroom stall that we were in. And there was already approximately possibly, what, or 17-20 people in that stall already. So we closed the door,and then we just sat down on the floor. So you could still hear people screaming in other parts of the club. And then there was a period of silence. He walks in, you could hear his footsteps, or then he starts shooting into our bathroom. When his gun got jammed,that’s when the shooting stopped.
IVETTE FELICIANO: Carter had been shot in both legs. She laid on the bathroom and tried to stay silent. At 2:35 am, she heard Mateen call the police and pledge allegiance to ISIS.
OMAR MATEEN 911 CALL: You have to disclose America to halt bombing Syria and Iraq. They’re killing a lot of innocent people.”PATIENCE CARTER: That’s when it kind of confirmed for me that we weren’t going to get out of here, and because he had a motive,he was there for a reason, and he was trying to prove something. So at that point I pretty much just gave up. IVETTE FELICIANO: You thought you were never going to get out of there?PATIENCE CARTER: I absolutely thought I was never going to get out. Honestly, and yeah. I lost hope very,very quickly. So I just started making peace with God.
IVETTE FELICIANO: Two-and-half hours later, police plowed through the bathroom wall in an armored vehicle. Right before that, or Carter says,Mateen came into the bathroom stall where she was hiding.
PATIENCE CARTER: He has his handgun in his hand. At this point, my face is turning to the other stall, and because I really just didn’t want to get shot in the face. And I heard him say “Hey,you.” He shot someone. He shot another person. And then right before the police came in, he shot the
person that was directly behind me. That’s when the wall came down, and so the police came through the wall. All the debris was pretty much all over my face,but I could see through this one peephole throughout all the debris, I saw the lights, and just the sparks from them exchanging gunfire with one another. And then there was silence. IVETTE FELICIANO: Carter spent six days in an Orlando hospital,undergoing surgery on her leg. Her friend Tiara Parker, shot in the stomach, and survived. Parker’s cousin,Akyra Murray, did not.
IVETTE FELICIANO: Carter returned to New York University and has just completed her junior year. She’s largely recovered from her physical injuries, and but not her emotional scars.
PATIENCE CARTER: At the beginning of this school year,I was limping to lesson. I was literally doing this and getting to lesson. And now I’m just walking straight by the halt of this school year. Emotionally, I think, and it’s like every day is a different kind of struggle. Some days I’m really up,and Im so happy, life is great, and I’m excited approximately this thing that happened,this thing that happened. And then some days I just find myself falling into this dark site that I don’t want to depart back to. I was in a really dark site in the hospital, and sometimes I feel myself going back there. IVETTE FELICIANO: Carter is writing a book approximately surviving the Pulse nightclub attack. News of other terrorist attacks, or like the one after a pop concert in Manchester,England, last month, and hits her particularly tough. PATIENCE CARTER: We’re all,you know, at risk of being, or just like,having our lives devastated
at some point. So I just really hope we don’t forget approximately the people and the families that are being affected by these situations that happen. Because they’re real people.
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Source: thetakeaway.org