Dontae Martinez wanted to leave the popular Pulse nightclub in south Orlando by 2am, before the club was winding up and everyone left, spilling out onto the street outside. He wanted to beat the crowd to get home early.
The 22-year-old law student had left the club before the shooting started when a friend ran out after him and convinced him to come back in and have one more drink.
"In a matter of that time, having one more drink going back in, between five or 10 seconds later, I hear this loud boom, then pow-pow-pow," he tellsThe Irish Times.
“I’m laughing with my friend, saying, ‘who is setting off fireworks?’ I went to the dance floor and then decided to smoke a cigarette. As I am walking to the back, I am hearing more gunshots. It is just like, what is that now? Is it a speaker, maybe something dropped?”
Close to the gunman
Martinez estimates that he was no more than 75 feet away from the gunman.
“Getting to the door, it is just steady gunfire and I am turning, and seeing people falling, just people falling straight to the ground. Chaotic. Blood splashing, blood everywhere, people covered in blood, glasses dropping to the ground,” he says, tearfully trying to compose himself as he remembers what happened.
“It was a scene that nobody should have to visualise or experience. It shouldn’t have happened,” he says.
Standing on a street corner about seven blocks south of the nightclub, Martinez had joined friends yesterday afternoon to rally support for Orlando LGBT and wider community. They hold signs saying: “Love, Not Hate” and “One Pulse, One Family.”
At one point while standing on the street corner, it becomes too much for Martinez as he recounts what happened the night before to his friends. They gather around him and embrace him in a group hug as he wept.
Jim Hersan (50) from Orlando is one of the group on the street corner, standing in the suffocating Florida heat as cars whizz by, horns sounding. Some even occasionally shout abuse from their cars about Barack Obama for having caused this act of terrorism.
Worst attack
Strangers pull in, dropping off drinks and snacks for Martinez and his friends in a show of support. News helicopters whir overhead, catching footage of the Pulse nightclub that is still cordoned off as investigators probe the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history and the worst terror attack since 9/11.
“How does this type of event happen in little old Orlando, in a little nightclub where everybody is having fun? I am so confused by it,” says Hersan.
“I am still trying to find friends that are missing. I have got four friends who haven’t checked. I am still waiting on four friends to check in.”
He is watching Facebook to see if they post word online to say they are safe.
“One of my friend’s room-mates was killed last night. The bartender we all knew. It is devastating,” he says.
Martinez is waiting to hear back from friends too.
“I have 15 or more friends there that I know who were definitely there. I’ve texted. I’ve called. I’ve had no reply. I don’t know anything,” he said.
“I don’t know who’s alive, who’s in the hospital. I don’t know if they are out or dropped their phone at the bar. I am absolutely clueless as to what is going on.”
He is watching his phone closely.
“Every time it beeps and vibrates and rings, I look at it just hoping for the best,” he said. “But you have that fear that maybe it’s a phone call that you don’t want to hear.”
