Orlando shooting survivor Luis Lopez had moved from the Dallas-Fort Worth area to Orlando just six months before the massacre at Pulse Nightclub, where 49 people were shot by a lone gunman.
Fifty-three others were injured.
Lopez was at the club with his friends when the gunfire erupted.
"When we started hearing the gunshots, me and my friend at first, we were like, is that like the song? Is it going with the song? But when the music stopped playing and we still hear the gunshots firing and we see people running out of there, like screaming, tumbling over each other, yelling and the shots are still going, it was just so much. I would see people with blood on their shirts, blood everywhere, blood on their faces," Lopez said.
The 23-year-old, who lived in The Colony and worked in Lewisville for four years before moving back to Orlando, where he grew up, said the first thing he did when he heard gunfire was throw himself on the floor.
He said he then decided to make a run for it.
"I jumped over the fence, and I just started running and running and running, all the way until I felt like I was far away enough and even then, I could still hear the gunshots behind me firing over and over, nonstop," he said.
"It was, it was just very, very overwhelming," he added.
He said he later found out his friend was still in the building.
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"We were able to get in contact with him on the phone and he says, 'I'm scared. I don't know what to do. I see him shooting and he's laughing and he's shooting people and people are hurt and screaming and crying,' and so I called 911," Lopez said. "What can we tell him so he knows he's going to be okay?"
He said his friend's mother was also at the club that night.
"Unfortunately, his mom didn't make it. His mom was there and she got shot three times. She didn't make it. I'm in state of shock, still. I can't believe something like that especially after going there for so many years, that it happened like this," he said.
