ORLANDO, Fla. – As families of the victims gunned down Sunday in Orlando continue to mourn their loved ones, details of what happened inside the crowded nightclub began to emerge Tuesday.
The gunman, Omar Mateen, opened fire inside Pulse around 2 a.m., killing 49 people and injuring more than 50 others, before he was shot and killed by police.
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At news conferences Tuesday at Orlando Regional Medical Center and Florida Hospital Orlando, three of the wounded shared their harrowing stories.
Angel Colon
Angel Colon, 26, was saying goodbye to his friends at Pulse nightclub about 2 a.m. Sunday when shots rang out.
He said everyone began running, and he was shot several times in his leg. His bones shattered as he was trampled by the crowd trying to flee the club.
WATCH: Angel Colon shares his story
“All I could do was lay down there while everyone was running on top of me,” said Colon, appearing in a wheelchair at a news conference Tuesday at Orlando Regional Medical Center. “He goes in the other room, and I could hear more shotguns going on."
Colon said he felt safe for a moment when the gunman moved to the other room, but then he came back and began checking his victims.
“He's shooting everyone that's already dead on the floor, making sure they're dead,” Colon said. “I was able to peek over and I can just see him shooting at everyone. I can hear the shots get closer.”
Mateen shot the woman next to Colon.
"I'm thinking, 'I'm next. I'm dead,'” he said. “I don't know how (but) by the glory of God, he shoots toward my head, but it hits my hand, and then he shoots me again and it hits the side of my hip.”
Later, as a policeman dragged him to safety, his body was cut by shards of broken glass.
During the news conference, Colon turned to the doctors and nurses who treated him and said, "I will love you guys forever."
“This hospital is amazing,” he said. “If it wasn't for you guys, I definitely would not be here.”
Angel Santiago
Angel Santiago and his friends heard the shots about the time the club stopped serving alcohol, and they immediately took cover.
At first, Santiago thought the shots might have been over a fight, so he just wanted to stay out of the way until it was over. But when the gunfire kept ringing out, he and a friend ran to hide in the handicapped stall of a bathroom.
About 15 to 20 people took refuge in the stall, trying to avoid the bullets, but the gunfire kept getting closer.
“At one point everyone was like, 'Ssh, ssh. Be quiet. Be quiet,' and that’s when bullets starting going through the stall wall toward us,” Santiago said. “I can’t recall exactly how many bullets, but it sounded like he unloaded, essentially.”
Santiago, who was wheeled in on a stretcher to speak with media Tuesday at Florida Hospital Orlando, had been hit in the left foot and right knee.
WATCH: Angel Santiago shares his story
It was clear right away that some of those shot in the stall had been killed, he said. He called 911, and eventually the gunshots quieted and he heard police yelling, “Drop it!”
After not hearing gunfire for a while, Santiago decided to crawl out from under the stall to try to get help. He couldn't walk, so he dragged himself out of the bathroom over to the bar area of the club and saw a police officer.
“When I finally saw an officer, I had my cellphone in my hand, and I started waving the light so that he could see me,” Santiago said.
Police told him to crawl over to them, and when he got close enough, two SWAT team members dragged him outside by his arms.
He told them about the people wounded in the bathroom and gave them directions to exactly where it was in the club before they put him in an ambulance.
Santiago said the friend hiding in the stall with him was in stable condition Tuesday after being critically injured in the shooting. Another friend at the club with him was not hurt.
“I'm just grateful to be alive,” he said. “After seeing what occurred, I don't even know how I'm alive today.”
Patience Carter
Patience Carter and her friends were visiting Orlando from Philadelphia, and Pulse came up when they Googled popular nightclubs in the city.
Carter said they arrived at Pulse about midnight and were having the time of their lives hanging out inside the club when she realized it was nearly 2 a.m. and asked how they would be getting home. Her friend said she would call an Uber car, and a few seconds later, they heard the gunfire.
Carter and her friends dropped to the floor in fear and confusion and somehow she and her friend, Akyra Murray, ended up outside the club. But another friend was still inside, and Carter said they decided to go back in to get her.
“When we went inside, we got trapped in there,” she said.
Carter and her two friends ran with others to the bathroom and were the last to get into the handicapped bathroom stall before a man closed the door behind them.
WATCH: Patience Carter shares her story
“The gunman entered the bathroom and was shooting his machine gun, so we're all scrambling around in the bathroom, screaming at the top of our lungs when he was in there the first time,” Carter said.
Once the gunfire stopped, she realized she had been shot in the leg and her two friends had also been hit. They lay there in pain for hours, hoping someone would come and help.
As they waited, the gunman came back, and they heard him call 911 and pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State group.
“The motive was very clear to us who were laying in our own blood and other people's blood, who were injured, who were shot,” Carter said. “We knew what his motive was and he wasn't going to stop killing people until he was killed, until he felt like his message got out there.”
Mateen spoke to the hostages in the bathroom several times, demanding they turn off their phones. At one point, a phone began ringing outside the stall, and Mateen demanded someone in the bathroom hand it over. No one responded, so Carter threw her phone out to appease him.
Later, three explosive sounds were heard just before police rescued the hostages inside the bathroom. As the explosions went off, Mateen backed into the stall and shot three more hostages, one at a time. Carter's friend later told her another hostage had shielded Carter from those final bullets.
“I don't know the name of that person, but if they're somewhere watching, 'Thank you, for saving my life, literally,'” Carter said. “If it wasn't for that person shielding me, it would have been me shot, and I wouldn't be sitting here today to talk about it.”
After police broke through the wall into the bathroom, Mateen was killed in a gun battle.
Carter's friend, 18-year-old Akyra Murray, did not make it. She was Mateen's youngest victim. The friend that Carter and Akyra went back into the club to rescue survived.
WATCH: Patience Carter reads poem she wrote about surviving shooting
Carter wrote a poem Monday night and shared it during the news conference Tuesday. She said writing is a part of her healing process.
"The guilt of feeling grateful to be alive is heavy
Wanting to smile about surviving, but not sure if the people around you are ready
As the world mourns the victims killed and viciously slain,
I feel guilty about screaming about my legs in pain
Because I could feel nothing, like the other 49, who weren't so lucky to feel this pain of mine
I never thought in a million years that this could happen
I never thought in a million years that my eyes could witness something so tragic
Looking at the souls leaving the bodies of individuals
Looking at the killer’s machine gun throughout my right peripheral
Looking at the blood and debris covered on everyone’s faces
Looking at the gunman’s feet under the stall as he paces
The guilt of feeling lucky to be alive is heavy
It's like the weight of the ocean's walls, crushing, uncontrolled by levies
It's like being drug through the grass with a shattered leg and thrown on the back of a Chevy
It's like being rushed to the hospital and told you're going to make it
When you laid beside individuals whose lives were brutally taken
The guilt of being alive is heavy"
-- Patience Carter