Rodney Sumter

I was closing out my checks and about to collect my tips. It was 2:00 a.m. I was talking to my friend and I remember it sounding like a broken speaker. It was crazy how loud everything was. Once we realized it was gunshots, we hit the floor and just prayed that it would stop. It kept going. After a while, you realize they were going after any and everybody. * I remember getting hit in the arm. It felt like, you know how in middle school you fall asleep in class and you hit your elbow and you hit your funny bone? Iit felt like somebody shot my funny bone. It damn near blew my arm completely off. We knew that the police were outside but there wasn’t anybody to come save us at that point. My mom always told me If you ever have an opportunity to praise, worship, and ask God for forgiveness before you pass away, then do so. All I could think of my kids and how young they are. God not now. And if it is now, please forgive me of all sins and watch over my kids and family. * He stopped shooting from the end of the bar. He went to the next room and I had to make that choice. Whether I was going to stay and play dead or get up and get out of there. There was another club-goer behind the bar with me. I don't remember him coming behind the bar but remember him getting up. He got up and he ran. He didn't tell me to come with him or anything but I felt that was my moment. I don't know how I was able to get up. One of my arms was immobile and the other had bones sticking out. But I got up and I just ran for my life. I didn't see any dead bodies. I don't know who I stepped over to get out. But I got out of that emergency exit door and I ran for my life. * I remember coming out of a pitch black club and seeing 40 cop cars and a bunch of police officers with guns pointed at the club. They almost looked like they were going to shoot me because I came running out of there like a chicken with his head cut off. But nobody would help. They all were just looking pretty much stunned. This kid came out of nowhere and he pulled me aside. He told me I was shot in the back. I didn't even know I was shot in the back. I was just holding my arm trying to keep it up because it was dangling. He took his shirt and made a tourniquet. Another guy helped, took his shirt off and gave it to me. Asked me about my family, everything, trying to keep me conscious. They put me in the back of a cop car. I realize it's becoming hard to breathe. I was the first one admitted to the hospital. * I remember the first time I actually broke down in tears. Mom. I've been shot. I've been shot four times. She and my dad drove from Jacksonville all the way to Orlando. My kids didn't come in until maybe a couple of days later. I had so many people that we took over the entire family room on our floor in the hospital. They all stayed. It was literally 50 to 60 people inside the family room, all there to see me. I did my best to hide it from my son. Kids are intelligent. You can try to hide from them as much as you want, but he knew. * Father's Day was maybe like a week after. They propped pillows for me on the couch. 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. I took those bullets and all I could think about was my kids. To be able to get out, and for him to call me his superhero, it gives me motivation to keep moving forward. ****************** Rodney Sumter is a survivor of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting. Instructions/Permissions *Interviews are edited and condensed *Tag @dearworld on any social/digital use. We are @dearworld on Instagram/Twitter and we are at Facebook.com/dearworld *Credit Dear World/Daymon Gardner for portrait