'I'm next, I'm dead': Survivors recount horror as shooting unfolded

CTV National News: Playing dead to stay alive Some of the shooting survivors were strong enough to tell their stories alongside the people who kept them alive. Richard Madan reports.

Angel Colon was certain he wouldn't make it out of Pulse nightclub when gunman Omar Mateen began shooting at the gunshot victims lying helplessly on the club's floor.

When gunfire first rang out shortly after 2 a.m. on Sunday, Colon was shot in the leg several times.

"I had fallen down," he recalled during a news conference in Florida on Tuesday. "I tried to get back up, but everyone started running everywhere -- I got trampled over."

Colon quickly realized he couldn’t walk, as the bones in his left leg were shattered.

"All I could do is lay down while everyone was just running on top of me."

Colon said he heard a steady stream of gunfire as club-goers screamed for help and pleaded for their lives. When Mateen made his way to another room in the venue, Colon hoped the worst was behind him.

But eventually, 29-year-old Mateen returned, and began shooting the victims on the ground

"I hear him come back, and he's shooting everyone who's dead on the floor, making sure they're dead," Colon recalled.

As the sound of gunshots drew closer, Colon witnessed the woman lying next to him get shot.

"I'm think, 'I'm next, I'm dead," he said.

The shooter aimed for Colon's head, but "by the grace of God" the bullet struck his hand instead. Another bullet hit Colon's hip.

"I had no reaction," Colon said. "I was just prepared to stay there, playing dead so he won't know I'm alive."

Colon said the shooting continued for another five to 10 minutes, before police made their way inside the building.

Mateen was eventually killed by police inside the nightclub.

A police officer dragged Colon over the shattered glass on the club's floor, and outside the venue.

"I don't feel pain, but I feel all this blood on me," he recalled.

"He dropped me off across the street. I look over and there are bodies everywhere."

Club-goer runs back into Pulse to find friend, gets trapped

It was Patience Carter's first night out in Orlando when she decided to visit Pulse with two of her girlfriends.

The trio had settled on the club after Googling the city's best nightclubs.

"Pulse was the first one to come up," she said Tuesday. "We were so excited."

Carter said the venue didn't disappoint. "We were having the time of our lives," she said. "We were all having the night that we dreamed of."

She said she began to hear gunshots while her friend was ordering an Uber to get the girls home.

"I thought it was a BB gun at first, or the DJ playing the sound of gunshots," Carter said. "I didn't think they were real gunshots. But the fear in me made me drop to the ground anyways."

Carter quickly made it out of the club along with one of the girls, but the two re-entered in hopes of finding their other friend.

"We went inside -- we got trapped in there."

She admits she feels guilty about heading back into Pulse as the massacre was taking place.

"We saw our friend, but everyone was just rushing into the bathroom stall," Carter recalled. "The gunshots were still going off rapidly."

The girls were hiding in the stall with several other club-goers when the shooter made his way inside the bathroom.

"People were getting hit by bullets," she said. "Blood was everywhere."

Carter was shot in the leg, while one friend was shot in her arm, and the other was shot in the side.

She said the gunman was in the bathroom when he made a 911 call.

"You could hear him talking to 911, saying the reason why he's doing this is because he wants America to stop bombing his country," she said. "From that conversation to 911, he pledged an allegiance to ISIS."

She continued: "His motive was very clear to us who were laying in our own blood and in other people's blood. We knew what is motive was, and he wasn't going to stop killing people until he was killed."

Carter survived the massacre along with one of her friends, but the other friend died of her injuries.

Gunman laughed as he fired: survivor

Another survivor who spoke to reporters earlier in the week recalled Mateen laughing as he fired shots through the crowd at Pulse nightclub.

Norman Casiano was shot twice in the back during the massacre at the popular Orlando gay club.

"The scary part was that he didn't say anything, and what was scarier is when he shot the boy that was already shot, he laughed," Casiano told reporters in Florida.

Casiano said he was hit by two bullets while he was crawling over bodies, towards the nightclub's bathroom.

"As he's laughing, that's when he fires through the whole front of the (bathroom) stall.

"He free-fired, not knowing where he was shooting," he recalled. "That's when I got my first two wounds."

He said he could feel heat radiating from his back down his leg.

Casiano called his family, but his cellphone battery was on the verge of dying.

"I said, 'Dad, dad, I've been shot, he shot me in the back," he recalled. "And my phone turns off. That just left them frantic."