ORLANDO, Fla. — For Pulse survivor Orlando Torres, it is hard to believe nearly 10 years have passed since the nightclub shooting. But it only takes a second for him to remember what he went through inside the club that night, hiding in a bathroom stall as the gunman moved through the building.
“Three-and-a-half hours felt like three-and-a-half days to be saved,” Torres said.
At one point, Torres thought he was going to die.
“I don’t know if it was his fingers or gun, I don’t know, but I know he walked around and saw my body laying underneath there and I just froze there,” Torres said. “I was expecting my whole back to be riddled with bullets — but thank God he left me alone.”
Torres was not shot, but he was injured when law enforcement eventually rescued him through a narrow hole in the nightclub’s outer wall — one of several holes law enforcement made to reach survivors trapped inside.
“The holes in the walls where the last survivors were saved, it was like a gateway — not a gateway to heaven but to freedom — and shows what we went through,” he said.
Torres said he believes his background helped him survive. He previously worked in law enforcement in New York and spent years in security. When he heard the first gunshots, he knew something was wrong.
“We were hearing it constantly, and I’m like, that don’t sound right — that popping doesn’t sound right,” Torres said. “I don’t know if it was my experience as a law enforcement officer in New York, or in security 20 years, I don’t know, I just automatically locked that door, laid down on that toilet bowl with my feet up.”
Those memories made it difficult for Torres to watch crews tear down the Pulse nightclub building earlier this year.
“It hurt to see it being torn down because along with that goes a lot of great memories — besides for what happened that June 12th — of a gunman who came in and terrorized everybody just because they wanted to dance, and take as many lives as he could,” Torres said.
Torres had helped organize the Latin night event that brought people together that infamous night. Despite the trauma, he said the attack has not stopped him from going out and living his life.
“Three or four times, my life flashed in front of me in that restroom, and it wasn’t my time,” Torres said. “You have a date and time — we all don’t know. And because of that, you don’t stop enjoying life. That’s why I love that phrase ‘Keep Dancing Orlando’ because if you don’t, they won. So, ‘Keep Dancing Orlando’.”
Torres is also making the most of his second chance by doing work he said helps save others. He now works as a driver, often delivering lifesaving organs to hospitals.
On every trip, time matters.
“I have a mission to get this to a place in a timely manner because patients are on standby, ready for surgery that same day, or the following day, and you can’t delay,” Torres said.
He said he equips his vehicle at his own expense to make sure each delivery is handled professionally and arrives on time.
“I do it with my heart. It’s giving back,” Torres said. “God gave me that second chance, and thank God I’m alive to do what I’m doing right now. I’m doing something worthwhile.”