Survivors who were partying at a gay club when terrorist Omar Mateen opened fire described the scenes of horror after they hid under dead bodies, ran for their lives, or heroically saved others who had been shot. Mateen entered the Orlando nightclub Pulse wielding a handgun and AR-15 assault rifle ‘shortly after 2am, killing at least 49 people and injuring 53 more before he was shot dead by police around 5.35am. Nursing student Joshua McGill described hiding under a car and finding fellow club-goer Rodney Sumter with a bullet in each arm along with a gunshot wound in the back. McGill, who ripped off his shirt and used it as a tourniquet, later wrote on Facebook: ‘Words cannot and will not describe the feeling….Being covered in blood.

 
Mateen, who legally purchased two firearms in recent weeks, exchanged gunfire with a police officer outside the club around 2am before he made his way inside and took the remaining club-goers hostage. Rob Rick said the shooting started just before closing time. ‘Everybody was drinking their last sip,’ he said. The realization that shots had been fired took a while to register, since witnesses said it was masked by the beat of the music. Luis Burbano described the sound, and told CNN: ‘No one put two and two together until the fifth and sixth. ‘Between 10 and 20, that’s when everything really started getting real, and then we all at that point did a domino effect all to the floor.’

Rick got on the ground, crawled toward a DJ booth and escaped after a bouncer knocked down a partition leading to an area restricted to employees behind the club. One woman said she hid in the bathroom and covered herself with dead bodies to evade Mateen, CNN reported. Entertainers scheduled to perform that night took cover in the dressing room and crawled out of the building after police removed the air conditioning unit.

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