Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\nIt started as a girls night out.<\/p>\n
Murray, her friend Tiara and her husband\u2019s sister, Akyra, were enjoying the evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just having the best night,\u201d Murray said. \u201cAll the way up until the very point where everything just changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the very end of the night, and we were getting ready to leave and Tiara started looking at her phone to order the Uber,\u201d she added. \u201cWe were almost out of there and that\u2019s when we heard the gunshots going off in the other room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Murray and Akyra managed to exit the club unharmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only person that wasn\u2019t with us at the time was Tiara, so we had to go back inside,\u201d Murray said. \u201cThe choice to go back in was out of pure love.\u201d<\/p>\n
They found their friend, but the chaos forced them into a bathroom stall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gunman actually came into the bathroom. All you heard was his footsteps and then he started firing into the entire bathroom,\u201d Murray said. \u201cI looked down and I saw that I was bleeding.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTiara and Akyra were both shot as well, and you could hear people just moaning in agony and pain,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
The gunfire stopped, but the terror continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis gun jammed so we didn\u2019t know what he was going to do, and it was like that for the next three hours until the police actually intervened,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n
Murray made it out with Tiara.<\/p>\n
Akyra, who had gone back inside with her to find their friend, became the youngest of the 49 victims killed. She was 18.<\/p>\n
The massacre remains one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an attack against a community of people who\u2019ve only shown me love,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n
Today, Murray is still moved to share her story \u201cto feel worthy of life.\u201d <\/p>\n
And at a time when support for LGBTQ+ Americans is reportedly on the decline, Murray says the message remains important.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sad that people are in such a divisive place, where it\u2019s either my way or no way at all, and because I don\u2019t understand you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Murray\u2019s message 10 years after the horror:<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be an ally,\u201d she said. \u201cWe all need to be that for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 A decade later, Patience Murray says she feels called to speak about June 12,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-305814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}