Survivor Talks About The Orlando Tragedy

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

With six shots to the leg, Ángel Colón was sure that he was living his last moments in this world when Omar Mateen, the author of the attack against the Orlando Pulse club, aimed at his head and shot.

"I thought he was going to die," the 26-year-old zumba instructor told People, who spoke in an interview with the publication of his memories of that tragedy and how he has tried to overcome it, both physically and mentally.

After three operations and months of rehabilitation, Colón said that he is healing the wounds left by the massacre of June 12, in which 49 people lost their lives and 53 were injured.

"I am grateful to continue here," said the young man of Puerto Rican origin, who has now become an activist against gun violence and has traveled to Washington DC to advocate for more regulation.

“It is having a second chance. I'm young, I'm only 26 years old. I have many goals that I can achieve. I do everything I can, and I help others as much as I can. I am very grateful. I have no reason to be bitter, no reason, he added.

A memory that remains engraved in the memory is the reunion with his family after the attack. "I can't explain what it felt like to see them," he said. "I almost don't see them anymore. You really hold them tighter, you really spend more time with them. I spend all day with my family now, I made my mother move in with me.”

On that terrible night and the person responsible for mowing down so many lives, Columbus is clear that he does not want hatred to make his life bitter. "I grew up in the church, learning to forgive and move forward," he reflected. “At first I had anger inside me. But to help myself, I can't show that anger. I can't be bitter. I had to leave it behind. Keeping [those] things inside will destroy your soul.”