Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.
Laura Vargas survived the Pulse Nightclub Massacre that happened on June 12, 2016. Laura was at the club that night with Luis Vielma who was one of the 49 victims of the shooting.
Laura and Luis both worked at Universal Studios. Laura began working at Halloween Horror Nights at the Walking Dead House. Luis was transferred from the Disaster ride to Halloween Horror Nights. They hit it off and began hanging out together outside of work. Eventually Laura left Universal to work for her father’s accounting company in Miami.
Laura came back to Orlando From Miami for a Universal Studios awards ceremony. Luis didn’t have a date, so he invited Laura to be his for the ceremony. She got to Orlando on Friday June 10, 2016. On Saturday they went to Kiki’s for breakfast and then Artegon to go to a comic book store opening. She had a rewards voucher for Rainforest Cafe and so they had a fabulous dinner there.
A friend called her and asked if se would be interested in going dancing at Pulse that night. She hesitated, not having prepared for a night out. She asked Luis if he was up for it and he said, “Sure why not?” They got home, changed, and left about 11:30pm so it wasn’t going to be a very long night. On the way to the club Luis called another friend and invited him as well. They all got to the club about 12:15AMish.
It was a whole new world, there were people everywhere. The music was salsa and meringue. This could be a fun night. Laura got the first round. Luis would get the second round. They usually only get 2 drinks since there was driving involved. It was a fun night.
Luis was going to drive so Laura got her last drink about 2am. As she was putting her debit card back in her wallet she heard popping. People were running. Her view was blocked by a wall. She looked around the corner and saw a man reloading his gun. She ran back to Luis. She said to him, “This is for real, this isn’t part of the show, there is a man in here with a gun, what do we do?” He said, “Just keep your voice down and get on the floor and do as he says.” That is what they did.
Luis slid against the wall and let himself slide down, and hugged his legs and hid his face. As she was getting on the ground face first, she felt the first shot which entered her lower back and exited through her thigh. She fell with her whole body weight. She heard three more shots next to her. Luis was there as well as three other girls so she assumed they each had been shot. The pain was indescribable. She kept hearing screaming in Spanish, “Please god, what is this? Please don’t let him kill me, save me.” Within two minutes the room went silent with flashing lights. She could her the gunman’s heavy footsteps and the occasional shooting.
She was moving on the floor trying to get comfortable when she felt footsteps approaching her again. She felt a shoe standing next to her. Her body shook from a second shot which hit her mid right side of her back and it went straight through. Her ears began to ring. She pretended to be dead since it was clear the gunman’s goal was to kill. When he walked away she managed to get her phone out and she called her ex. Her ex called back which could have drawn the gunman’s attention to them. With no answer, the ex stopped calling and later went to Pulse.
Laura then waited for voices of police. She prayed. It felt like an hour. She began to hear footsteps and heard “Alpha team go left.” She looked over her left shoulder, and she said “Please help me. “He gave her a signal to be quiet. The police then announced, “If there are any survivors that can get up and walk out, then go now.” About 8-10 people ran out. What remained was a sea of bodies. She couldn’t see Luis. An officer then said, “start taking out survivors.” Laura managed to flip over and get in the way of an officer. The female officer and another officer pulled Laura out. The female officer grabbed Laura’s wrists and she said, this is going to hurt very much but you need to stay quiet because the shooter is still in the building.” She was pulled through glass, blood, and vomit. Things cut her back as she was dragged. She was picked up and placed in the back of a pick up truck. She was asked to roll over to make room for another shooting victim who was limp and in very bad shape and the truck took off. An officer was hanging off the truck and he told the guy next to her “Don’t die on me, hang in there.” Her ex called on the truck ride and she was told by the officer that they were going to ORMC. That was the last she had her phone and wallet. She was holding on to her possessions so they could identify her body.
Six nurses took her into the hospital. They cut off her clothes and asked each other, “How many gun shots?” She realized she had not died at the club but realized she might die in the hospital as she waited for her turn in triage. She blacked out and woke up with doctors working on her again. She was taken to a room with several other patients from Pulse.
She heard popping again. She thought, “He is coming back to kill the rest of us.” A doctor said something like, ‘This is a code black, this is not a drill, do what you were taught and stay with your patients.” The curtains were closed, and doors locked. She asked a nurse to hold her hand. She was terrified. The shots were actually from the club which was just a few blocks south of the hospital.
She was in the hospital for 11 days with tubes and catheters. She could not eat or drink anything since her stomach had been shot. Therapy dogs were the only thing that could calm the pain and hunger. Pulse survivors were registered at the hospital with alias names so it was a challenge for family to get in.
The gun shots affected her small intestines, her stomach, and her liver. In surgery, a nurse grabbed her head and said, “It’s all right we are going to save your life, now count back from ten for me.” She was thankful that she would not feel any more pain. She woke up with a tube down her thought and saw her ex and her mom. Her hands were bound so she would not rip out the intubation tube. She signaled to a nurse that she wanted to write a note and she wrote, “where is Luis?’”She was told he was in surgery though no one knew where he was. She didn’t find out Luis had died until two days later when she had to go in for a second surgery. She had called a friend since she suspected the staff was keeping her in the dark. She asked her friend, “Have you heard from Luis?” Her friend let out a long sigh and said, “Has no one told you?” It was bad. Luis Sergio Vielma was one of the 49 lives taken on that horrible night.
