Orlando, five years after the massacre | DW Documentary

It is the worst act of violence in history against the American lgbtq community

five

years

ago a gunman killed 49 people 53 more were injured at the pulse gay nightclub in

orlando

amanda grau only survived because she hid in the bodies of the other victims His physical wounds took months to heal He still has nightmares and wakes up screaming in his wife's arms for the first time in four

years

Amanda returns to the scene of the

massacre

She was shot on the dance floor when the shooter opened fire and she was seriously injured in four gunshots his good friend chris san felith was killed that night but i wish i could have done more to save you amanda only survived by hiding under the bodies of other victims it took three hours of hostage-taking and shooting before police shot and killed omar martine His motives are unclear to this day, shortly before the attack, he swore allegiance to the so-called Islamic state.

I remember we cried and screamed and begged for please, you know, it's not enough anymore, then we heard an explosion and that's when the firefighters and police came in. with the mts and the paramedics and saying that you know who said who they were and that now we are safe and that they killed him, you know that we are safe from him and that they need us to try to get out as quickly as possible. We can so they could take us to the hospital I had to tell her I can't walk, I really can't move, so I had to drag my body across the bathroom floor, Jasmine growls, Amanda's wife accompanies her to the memorial on the Fifth Anniversary of the shooting.

I can never forgive him. I know God says forgive, but you can't forgive a monster like that. A practicing Christian. She asked the murdered victims what she should do through prayer. It was a big rainbow, so that's how it was. my sign from them says: you know, do it, do whatever you want, be an emergency firefighter paramedic, help people in this world who really need help and try to save their lives, so hopefully something like this or any nothing else in the world will not happen. Just to be there for them, Amanda went ahead and successfully trained as an emergency medical technician.

It gives me a sense of purpose knowing that you know when I'm out there and I'm helping someone, whatever the situation, whether we have to do CPR or someone who's had an accident or an elderly person maybe has fallen just to know that we They come and know that we are going to take care of them, it just makes me feel warm inside and just happy to be able to help someone in need. She has been working with iv brenner for the last year. Shifts last 12 hours, sometimes longer. They deal with an average of 8 to 10 medical emergencies per day.

The tight space in the ambulance has allowed them to get to know each other well the best person to talk to about this is someone who has been through it yes I have seen her interact with trauma patients she is great I can see that little twinge but she is getting over it I know this job because sometimes it depends on what we're going to do um sometimes uh you know tragedies it's like I want to protect her so um it's hard because I know what she's been through hey, are you okay? How was your day?

How was yours? Her home gives Amanda strength and a sense of security. She and Jasmine have known each other for a long time. A year ago they got married and now they live with Jasmine's children as a family. I say yes, you turn it around twice and that's it, I tell you I knew what he was talking about, I feel like it makes me feel helpless, like I just wish there was something else I could do, especially at times like that, when we're on the beach and the fireworks start and it's unexpected because it's daylight. or something like that and she just starts running and you know she's looking for a place to go to get away from the sounds of gunshots, you know because that's what it sounds like to her and I'm chasing her and we're trying to go somewhere safe place. somewhere so she doesn't have to hear that and feel that way and bring it all back, you know, it's like flashbacks I have when that happens, but you being there, that's enough for me, that is doing. something like that I don't want you to feel like that amanda and her entire family including her parents and her brother live in tampa an hour and a half drive from

orlando

amanda always had a good relationship with her parents and her brother but they became closer since the shooting that night everyone had celebrated her father's birthday afterwards amanda wanted to briefly go to the club to dance with her friend chris she had been there only half an hour and the horror began 9-1-1 recordings show people waiting in panic for let help arrive 9-0 What is the location of your emergency call?

I need you to stay where you are. I'm trying to transfer to the Orlando Police Department, but we have several calls coming in as they're working on the shooting, okay? he's still in, okay who's still in, the shooter is in, what address Amanda called her mother from her hiding place in a bathroom, the phone rang and I immediately look at the clock every time the phone rings because my kids, what if It's late. I panicked so I jumped up and answered the phone and all I got was mom. They shot me. I'm like Amanda, where are you?

All she said was pulse. I'm like, where's the pulse? She says Orlando, I said Orlando. Amanda said, where in Orlando is Paul? I don't know mom, please call 9-1-1. They shot me and then I got a dial tone. Well, my sister has always been the type of person who just takes her shirt off. She has always been a very loving and tolerant person, I know we joke about her, but she really is an amazing person, I'm not saying that because she's my sister, it's just that you can see it in her, she always wants to help people.

We always make a joke that if she has

five

dollars in her pocket she'll give you ten dollars and so how this changed her, I feel like she's more of an advocate to help people and an understanding of what happened to her, but I didn't let let her define it. I couldn't even imagine losing her. It was hard. I get like this only when I think about it or talk to someone about it, but for the most part, you know we are a happy family and I am happy that she is here with us to continue her life.

Brandon Wolf is also a survivor. There is a lot to do to prevent things like pulse from happening. We need to have a policy conversation about how we treat guns. In this country it is too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on weapons designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible before the attack. Brandon was a manager at Starbucks now he is an activist fighting for stricter gun control laws and against gun control. -Lgbtq discrimination, what happened at the time, was not an aberration, it was an inevitability. The ingredients for anti-lgbtq violence are always present.

These are the same ingredients that appear when a trans child's head crashes into a locker. They are the same. ingredients that exist when a black trans woman is shot to death in the street when I was a child the church was not a safe place for me the school was not a safe place for me the home was not always a safe place for me and that is true for a There are a lot of lgbtq people and for that reason we create these safe spaces like Pulse as a kind of lifeline where we can be authentically ourselves without having to be afraid or look over our shoulders first.

Amanda and Brendan meet for the first time exactly five years later. the

massacre

of the whole world, people just came together as a community and just lent their shoulders and their hearts and you know if we needed help or something and they just came trying to be united, so that was It was very beautiful when the world was doing That, a new commitment to a world where we can be ourselves unapologetically and do so in honor of the people who were robbed of the great solidarity sparked by the mass shooting in Pulse. club should not hide the fact that members of the lgbtq community have to live with the daily threat in this same country where, as the president himself has described, gun violence is an epidemic.