Orlando Nightclub Shooting Survivors Share Their Stories 2 Years After The Tragedy, And It's Heartbreaking

"My son comes in. He brought me all these little gifts he made in class. Then I read his paper and I broke down. My son's a really big DC Comics fan. He loves superheroes. He made this poster:
Batman is smart,
Superman is fast,
the Hulk is strong,
but my dad is my favorite superhero." - Rodney Sumter, bartender at Pulse who was shot 4 times.

"Phones start ringing all over the place. The one that gets me is the one iPhone that was next to my feet that just kept going and going and going. I'm looking at the wall, I'm looking at the opening and I looked down, I looked back up, looked down, looked back up. I knew what it was. It was a phone but it kept catching me off guard. I would see the caller ID, the picture. I was like, 'I know this person's never going to be able to pick up this phone again.'" - Omar Delgado, Orlando police officer.

“I would text him "Night, Night." And he would always text back, "Night, night, I love you." But that night, there was no "Night, Night," because I knew he was at the club. I had sent mine. And he sent me "I love you." But he didn’t send his "Night, Night" because he was out. I saw in my mind, I saw him lying face down. I said "Wow, I understand where he is, he is lying face down." Because in my mind I saw it. [T]hey told me, "We found that he was not alive, because we found his ID. We found him face down." He took a piece of me” - Dimarie Rodriguez, mother of Jean Carlos Nieves Rodriguez who was a victim of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

"You can probably tell by the bags under my eyes, I have a hard time sleeping. Honestly, it's been a rough year. I go to counseling. I think it's more the fact that I don't take anything for granted anymore. Sometimes my son will want to do something or my wife will want to do something. I'm just so tired. Now I make the time to actually say, 'Okay. You know what? Let's go ahead and go.'" - Ray Rivera, a DJ at Pulse.

"Us guys in the gay community, we kiss each other on the cheeks hello. That's what us Latin people do. I was happy to see him as I was going to the bathroom with my friend. 'Hey, how you doing, Anthony?' We hugged, I gave him a kiss. 'Hope you enjoy your night and have a good night.' I went to the bathroom. Within minutes, I started hearing all those gunshots. I saw him and I kissed him hello, I was in the hospital bed when I saw his picture pop up as one of the 49." - Orlando Torres, a Pulse club shooting survivor.

"Before Pulse, I was the mom who dropped you off and picked you up every day, made your lunch, made your breakfast, had dinner ready. A pretty traditional mom, I would think. I’d go to all your sporting events and had your calendar and kept you organized and on top of your grades and knew where you were, where you were going, your friends. Since June 12, 2016, I'm none of those things. I miss being a mom. It's almost like being infamous, because it's not what I asked for. I'm always going to be the owner of Pulse. I'm just always going to be that person. I'm always going to be her. I've had that conversation with them. 'We're always going to be those ... We're going to be that family forever.' Not that it's a bad thing, but it changes your life." - Barbara Poma, the owner of Pulse nightclub.

"I went to sleep. 2:06 a.m., I got a text. I love you Mom. I went to his apartment. I went in and I was like, he's here, I see shoes, I wasn't there more than ten minutes and the FBI called." - Mina Justice, whose son, Eddie Justice, was killed in the attack. She described rushing to her son's apartment as soon as she heard about the shooting.

"I was in a coma for three weeks. On July 3rd, I woke up. The first person I saw was my mother. She was right there next to me because my mother never left my side. I remember seeing her and she started crying. 'Where's Javier?' That was the first thing I asked. She didn't say anything. She just stood quiet. A nurse came, other people came. We didn't talk about Javier until the next day. I asked her again. That's when she told me. 'You have to be strong. Javier is gone.'" – Leo Melendez, survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting, friend of Javier Jorge Reyes, who died that night.

"The first three shots: I thought it was music. I felt the bass in my body on the floor against that wall. I felt it. I saw it. I thought it was the music. Then glass shattering, the air filling with smoke. The flashing of the gun looked like a strobe light. Everyone getting down." - Chris Hansen, a survivor.

"Leslie, one of our lead volunteers, didn't know how to handle this one call. It was a mother asking where her son is. 'Have we heard from her son?' I took the phone. 'Ma'am, I apologize, but at this time we have not heard from your son. But if we do, we will take down your number and call you back immediately.' Of course, we never did. And that haunts me." - Rob Domenico, a former board member of The Center in Orlando, a center for the LGBTQ community.

"I will never forget. But in order for me to do well for myself, for my family, in order to lift other people up, I want them to be able to at least talk to me, someone who went through tragedy. And forgiveness was part of the process. When you think of forgiveness, there is a specific thing that you have to forgive. There's a specific person you have to forgive. So yes, it was in my head, this guy who did this. I forgive you." - Angel Colon, a Pulse shooting survivor.

"I wake up. I'm not even crying. I'm smiling. Like I feel my lips at times, and at that time it felt so real, and I've never felt that before. I called his mom and she’s said, “I'm the only one who hasn't had a dream of him”. She thinks that it's because maybe he doesn't want to hurt her more than she's already hurting or something. Maybe she's not ready to see him in a dream" - Luis Roldan, survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

"Throughout my life, especially when I was younger, I had nightmares where someone’s chasing me and I’m running and hiding. I find somewhere to hide, a closet, and sure enough I’m found. That night was just like that but this time it was real." - Angel Santiago, a survivor.

"I remember I was carrying somebody's shoes and shirt because I didn't want them to get left behind. For whatever reason. I remember looking down and they were covered in blood. I just dropped them. I remember carrying Stanley Almodovar to the pickup truck where they were shuttling people to the hospital. He's a regular of mine. He came in every Saturday. Drank gin and tonic every week. I said, 'Keep your eyes open, keep your eyes open, keep your eyes open.'" - Kate Maini, a survivor and former bartender at Pulse.

"I went back to work the very next day. All of my gay friends that aren't law enforcement officers were going to all these events. They held vigils. They were all bonding together and grieving. It was difficult because I had to go right back to work. You go back into police mode and you're not able to grieve like you should. It was a big part of my PTSD. Some of it came from resentment, not being able to grieve with my community." - Alison Clarke, one of the first responders.

"The last time he saw him was outside the bar that night. He came early, he hugged and kissed him. He said, 'I'm very happy as I met someone, he's somebody.' He went inside and that was it." - Effrain Colon Ortiz, survivor

"She had a dress on. That night she was joking with us and she said, 'I’m going to change my clothes. I’ve got a bad feeling something might happen.' Me and my brother went out so she said, 'I love you guys so much.'" – Robert Pressley, son of Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, a victim of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

"We were friends since the seventh grade. We used to write our initials on everything. JAM. Josean. Amanda. Mercedes." – Josean Garcia, survivor and friend of Mercedes Flores and Amanda Alvear, who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting.

"I boiled the turkey necks. After it was boiled real good and the meat was falling off the bone, I'd put some golden mushroom soup inside of the water, and it would be like a gravy turkey neck thing you put on top of rice and cabbage on the side. That was her last meal. Our last meal together." - Emily Addison, whose partner Deonka Drayton died at Pulse.