I remember Sunday, June 12, 2016, too well, though I try not to. It was the weekend I’d planned to celebrate my 27th birthday.
I had a lot to celebrate back then. I was a new hire on ORMC’s 40-bed Medicine Unit. I had been on the job for 35 days. And, though I’d worked through my actual birthday two days earlier, my friends planned a belated party. I did everything with my friends. We were inseparable. And we loved our lives.
My friends asked where I wanted to go for my birthday. I chose a cafe on I-Drive for dinner and a show. But my friends wanted to save a little money and stay local. Pulse was close-by and Saturday was Latin Night. Everyone liked Pulse. It was a fun place and they had no cover charge to get in, which made it even better. So we all decided to go.
Seven of us squeezed into the car and headed to Pulse. We got there at 10:40 pm. When we headed into the club to celebrate my birthday, nobody could imagine that only three of us would make it out alive.
***
The first few hours of my party were great. Everyone was dancing, smiling, taking pictures and videos. It was awesome. But it quickly turned into a nightmare.
I stood at the main bar with my best friend, Jean Carlos. We were waiting for drinks, talking and having a great time. Everything changed at around 1:50 am. That’s when the first gunshots rang out.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Out of nowhere there was nonstop shooting. Machine gun sounds … regular gun sounds … everything was very fast. It wasn’t part of the show. It wasn’t a special effect. It was real.
The deejay turned off the music. He yelled that there was a man with a gun inside Pulse. “Everyone on the floor … run … get out!” We did what the deejay said and dropped to the ground. But it was too late. Jean Carlos looked at me and said, “You’re hit!”
I looked down at my right arm. It had been shattered. I could see that the radius was exposed. It felt cold, but it didn’t hurt. I knew I was losing a lot of blood and my clinical training took over. I put pressure on my arm to slow down the bleeding. Survival instincts also kicked in. The gunman was shooting his way through Pulse and was headed our way. We decided to play dead — there was no other option. We had to play dead to stay alive.
The gunfire kept coming. I lay on the ground. Jean Carlos was next to me, his head on my shoulder. We tried to look dead and blend in with all of the bodies on the floor. I whispered to Jean Carlos not to worry about my arm … I would be okay. But he didn’t answer.
The gunman moved through the bar, closer to us. With every step, he shot more people on the floor around him. When he got to us, he poked me with the barrel of his rifle. Could he tell that I was still alive? I kept my eyes closed and held my breath. He must have thought I was dead because he moved on to the next person.
At that point, the club was very dark inside. I remember thinking that the gunman had somehow shut off the lights. As I lay on the floor, I could smell blood. I was covered with it. But it wasn’t just mine. It was other people’s blood, too. I could also hear everything going on in the club: the screams, cries and pleas for help.
Suddenly, there was a loud burst of sound at the front entrance. Boom! Bang! I believe it was the police trying to break through the club’s walls. The gunman fled toward the bathrooms. The next thing I heard was a booming voice. “This is the Orlando Police Department! Who’s alive here?”
At first, I wasn’t sure if the voice came from a real police officer or the gunman looking for survivors he’d missed. Or, did the shooter have other friends here pretending to be police? I decided to take a chance and opened my eyes. It wasn’t the gunman. It was a police officer. I remember seeing the vest with “Police” printed across it.
“I’m alive, I’m alive!” I said.
“Can you walk?” shouted the officer.
“I think so,” I responded.
At 2:08 am, the police broke a window and began to pull survivors out of the club.
“Run by the window. Go to the window!” directed the officer.
“I have more friends in here,” I pleaded.
The officer answered, “I need you alive. Go to the window so I can help your friends!”
A wall of police officers started to move in as I got up and struggled toward the window. I knew things were bad. But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw around me. There were bodies everywhere. Most of them appeared dead. It was the worst thing I had ever witnessed in my life.
At around 2:15 am, I joined several other survivors at the window. An officer was on the other side helping us out. She gripped a gun in one hand — the gunman was still alive in one of the bathrooms —and used her free hand to pull people through the makeshift exit. When I got out the window, it was 2:40 am. It had been less than an hour since the first shots were fired. It felt like forever.
***
Outside of Pulse was a sea of police officers, firefighters and paramedics tending to the injured. Many people were in worse condition than me. The nearby Wendy’s restaurant parking lot became a makeshift triage center. There, we gathered — some survivors and some casualties.
The first responders began tagging victims for triage. They fastened yellow tags to people who could walk. Red tags were attached to gravely injured victims, who would get ambulance priority. Black tags were placed on the deceased victims.
As I stood in the parking lot, I noticed I was losing a lot of blood. That’s when I realized how serious my injury was. I knew from my training as a nurse that if I lost more blood, I would end up wearing a black tag, too. ORMC’s Level 1 Trauma Center was just two blocks away, so I decided to start walking. I felt really weak. I knew it was from the blood loss. Walking became very difficult, but people were there to help. A man from the crowd offered assistance. I told him how to put pressure on my arm to slow the bleeding. About 45 steps from the emergency department, a police officer joined us. Together, they helped me make it into the ED.
***
When I arrived at the ED, an RN named Brian helped me in. He and Elizabeth, another RN, assessed my injuries. As I’d suspected, the radius bone in my right arm was shattered by a high-velocity bullet. The nerves in my arm also were severed. As the ED team stabilized me, the pain started. It was unbearable, but the ED team started me on morphine so I could rest and prepare for what would be multiple surgeries.
As I lay in my bed in the ED, waiting to find out what needed to be done to fix my arm, Brian and Elizabeth called my manager on the Medicine Unit to let her know what happened. They offered to call anyone I needed. In a word, they were awesome.
It was around 4:00 am and I could hear the shouts and calls of doctors and nurses sending out the mass casualty alert. “This is an emergency, not a drill! Everyone needs to be here, now!” They mobilized team members from all hospitals and departments on the ORMC campus.
On Monday at 7:00 am, my emergency caregivers were joined by Adam from orthopedics. “Your arm doesn’t look good,” he said. “You’re going to surgery right now.” I spent 11 hours in the OR as the orthopedic team worked tirelessly to put my arm back together.
***
I woke up on Monday evening. As I came out of my post-surgery haze, I could tell my arm was back in one piece. But I also realized that I couldn’t move the fingers on my right hand. For an RN, losing the use of a hand is problematic, at best. Immediately, I alerted my doctor, who determined that the nerves in my arm and hand needed restoration. We then scheduled more surgeries to harvest nerves from my right leg to transplant into my right arm.
I then asked to see my friend, Jean Carlos. My request was gently put off. I was told that I needed to rest.
On Tuesday, my family revealed the horrible truth about what happened to Jean Carlos, my best friend — the person who knew I had been shot before I did. He did not survive the attack. I learned then that he had been shot three times. He passed away next to me on the floor of Pulse. As our last moments together came back to me, my stomach dropped. What happened to our other five friends? I was told that everyone else was okay, but at different locations.
Meanwhile, friends and coworkers rushed to my side. Even an administrator from Apple Computer came to see me. They let me and other survivors use Facetime to connect with friends and, when needed, say goodbye to those we lost. But that wasn’t enough. I needed to see my friends face-to-face.
I want to see my friends, I insisted. Give me a wheel chair. I want to see my friends. I’m going.
With that, friends, charge nurses and doctors gathered around me in an uncomfortable circle. “What is this? Is everyone going with me?” I asked. I got an answer I didn’t want to hear. “We’re so sorry. Some of them didn’t make it.” That’s when I learned that out of the seven of us who walked into Pulse that night, only three of us made it out alive.
***
Ultimately, I underwent three surgeries to rebuild my arm and regain nerve function. After that, I went through two difficult weeks of physical and occupational therapy. I once again have full use of my right arm and hand. I was also in group therapy with other Pulse survivors for six months. But trauma doesn’t end once your body starts to heal. It stays with you. It takes much more work to quiet the memories and quash the fears.
I remember worrying about my new job on the Medicine Unit. Would I still have one after being out for surgeries and recovery? How would I pay my day-to-day bills? How would I pay for my house and my car? And, let’s not forget —my hospital bill. Since I was only a month into my job, my health insurance had not yet kicked in. I was overwhelmed.
It’s during these times when you discover who has your back. ORMC — my new place of work — came to the rescue. They absorbed my hospital bills. In fact, they covered the hospital costs, medical expenses and discharge needs for all Pulse victims. I found this out when I spoke with Amy in billing. As my mind focused on payments, she said, “We’ve got this. You don’t have to worry about it.”
***
Life will never be the way it was before June 12 at 1:50 am. Forty-nine people lost their lives and 58 others were injured. I stay in touch with the other survivors, but I don’t go back to the Pulse site. I also don’t go to the cemetery where my friends are buried. I can’t. It freezes me in a tragic time and space.
Like the other survivors, I keep moving forward in life. I am back to caring for my patients in the Medicine Unit. When I see a patient struggling with their treatment or recovery, I tap into my experience to help them find the strength and courage to push forward. If they’ve been through trauma, I can relate and help them power through it. When I’m not working, I’m studying for my MSN degree.
Through all of this, I will never get over what happened at Pulse that night. But I will continue to live well and give my patients the genuine care and compassion that ORMC gave to me.
